The Jedi of Chaos
by Darksoar
Summary: Being considered for a major overhaul.
1. Chapter 0

Disclaimer: Star Wars - Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy belongs to Lucas Arts. Ranma 1/2 belongs to Rumiko Takahashi and Viz Video. 

A Star Wars-Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy/Ranma 1/2 Crossover

Necessary Fic information and timeline:

For Star Wars, this fic takes place eleven years after Return of the Jedi.

Ranmaverse timeline doesn't exist, as this is a merging of the two universes.

The Jedi of Chaos

Chapter 0 (version 1.00)  
Arrival. Ambush!

An old, battered New Republic shuttlecraft traveled through the silent void of space towards the planet Yavin.

"We'll be arriving at the Academy in around ten minutes."

At the pilot's announcement, several of his passengers let out sighs of relief. A few made their feelings known by saying "Finally!" and "It's about time!"

Of course, sixteen hours of flight with not even a holovid for entertainment meant sixteen hours of sheer boredom. For the most part, the mood change within the shuttlecraft was nearly palpable; a sense of anxiety and excitement perked up their spirits and started a bit of fidgeting for some of them.

One of them, twenty year old Rosh Penin, was quite relieved when he heard the news.

"That would be so great," he stated. "I've been going stir-crazy over here! Make it quick, will ya?" He yawned and stretched, wincing as he worked out the kinks in his spine. During the long flight he had attempted to get some sleep, but unfortunately had failed miserably.

It was just that the craft itself was an older model, over fifteen years in service if Rosh had read the registration plaque correctly. And with its age came various ... inconveniences.

Nothing life threatening to be sure, but nonetheless all of them combined served to make the trip almost impossible to tolerate.

For starters, the old junk's seats weren't reclinable, making it very difficult to sleep. And their padding was nearly worn out; Rosh could feel the hard, unyielding metal of the frame beneath. He found himself occasionally shifting about to relieve the uncomfortable pressure against his buttocks.

Another nuisance were the buffers that were supposed to dampen the roar produced by the engines. 'Supposed' being the operational word; Rosh was of the opinion that the damned things hadn't been properly maintained in years. As a consequence, an irritating, constant rumble was felt and heard from both sides of the shuttle and interfered with any of his attempts to rest.

There were more but Rosh chose not to think about them; it would've been just a further waste of time. Instead, he began to think about the events that had pointed him in the direction of Luke Skywalker's Jedi Academy on Yavin IV.

Two weeks ago, he had been in the middle of fulfilling a childhood dream of his; joining the New Republic Army. Already lean, fit, and possessing an athletic build, Rosh knew that any headstart he had on the physically grueling demands of military basic training would help achieve that goal. He had just gotten the military crewcut when the next step of the registration process threw him a curveball which forever changed his life.

When Luke Skywalker first conceived of the idea for rebuilding the Jedi Order, he had undergone thorough and exhaustive research in order to direct his search for potential disciples. In the process of doing so, he had come across an Imperial Intelligence device which he discovered had been used in hunting down Jedi Knights. It worked by scanning an individual to find out if he or she possessed an affinity for the Force. The Empire had used it to wipe out the old Jedi Order, but Skywalker intended to use it to help rebuild the new one.

So, with the cooperation of the New Republic's government, Luke had incorporated it within the Military Academy's registration process.

Like the rest of his fellow passengers, Rosh had been found to be Force sensitive. Some stern looking Jedi by the name of Kam Solusar had given him the option of learning how to harness his Force potential at the Jedi Academy. After a few days of serious deliberation, Rosh had finally accepted it.

Being Force sensitive was something about himself he had never suspected. Looking over his life, Rosh was able to perceive many subtle clues, but since they had just been that, subtle, he'd either ignored or misinterpreted them entirely.

As a child, his reflexes were extremely quick, even much quicker than those older than he was. He had taken great pride in that. When his age hit the double digits, Rosh became slowly aware that he was unusually perceptive and intuitive for someone his age.

Somehow, he could always tell when a person was twisting the truth or outright lying to him. Hidden meanings and the subtle nuances of body language required a bit more work, but experience soon made interpreting them as easy as spitting.

Up until now, Rosh had never fancied himself a Jedi, scouring evil from the galaxy. He'd always wanted to be a soldier, or if not that, a fighter pilot. Thus, he'd no preconceptions of what he faced ahead. That Solusar character only gave him a brief overview of the type of training he would receive at the Jedi Temple as well as a summary of the purpose of the Jedi Order. The only other information Rosh had was the occasional holocast on the History of Coruscant channel, as well as the rare interview of Luke Skywalker.

When the shuttlecraft had picked him up, the first thing he did after lift-off was to get a look at the prospective Jedi students that he would be living and studying beside with.

Other than himself, there were three humans onboard while the rest were sentient aliens. To pass the time, Rosh had taken a closer look at them.

He'd noted with great interest three female Twi-leks, two of who seemed to be a couple, judging by their close snuggling.

The third however had chosen the farthest seat as far away as possible from them, a clear expression of disgust on her face. It had been readily obvious to him that she did not approve of her two fellow Twi-leks relationship.

There was also a single Rodian who, in his opinion, had looked homesick. Rosh couldn't decide whether to feel pity or amusement, then forgot about it as he caught sight of two Kel-dor males. Their faces look like something out of his worst nightmares as a child. It looked as if some black, crab-like parasite had forcibly attached itself to the lower halves of their faces. It made a shiver go up his spine, and Rosh had to consciously fight the urge to cringe whenever he happened to glance their way.

The only one of them had been and still was asleep ever since Corsuscant was the lone female Zabrak. Aside from volume of her snoring, there was little else of interest about her.

As for the other humans...

One of them, an older man with graying hair at the temples near the front didn't rate more than a few seconds of Rosh's time.

The second, a black-haired guy with a small ponytail, sat in Rosh's row a few seats away from him. Yet so far, he'd acted as if Rosh didn't exist. Well that was okay, Rosh had decided to return the favor and ignored him in return.

It turned out to be quite easy to do so, especially since there was a pleasant distraction in the form of an extremely attractive red-head with the most vibrant hair color he'd ever seen. She had lovely brown eyes and for some reason, Rosh found himself looking quite intently at her, silently drinking in her beauty and trying vainly to gather up the courage to go and talk to her.

But even that soon lost its appeal. Bored again, and lacking anything else better to do, Rosh took the opportunity to try and get a response from his standoffish seatmate.

He began complaining out loud about the shuttlecraft's condition itself. Not too loud for the pilot to overhear and possibly take offense, but with enough volume to clearly reach his aloof neighbor's ears.

For nearly a minute, Rosh did himself proud, ranting and whining like a pro. Despite the fact that it was a rather childish and immature thing to do, Rosh felt slighted earlier by the other boy's antisocial tendencies.

A little payback was necessary.

Several seconds later, his attempts unexpectedly hit paydirt. The ponytailed snob (as Rosh grew to think of him) finally responded, his flat voice snapping Rosh out of his critique of the shuttle's comfort room.

"Hey."

Rosh was so caught up in act that his response was automatic and said in a distracted manner. Yet as he answered his neighbor, a smug grin slowly formed as a result of his little victory.

"Yeah? Anything I can do for ya?"

"Shut up."

The blunt reply was spoken in a harsher tone and this time it made Rosh turn his head to regard the 'snob' with growing anger.

Said 'snob' was sitting at the other end of the row, not having moved at all since the beginning of the flight. Rosh estimated him to be around his age and for the first time since he boarded the shuttle, looked at him real close.

The guy's ponytail ('Oh jeez, what's he doing with such a feminine hairstyle?' wondered Rosh derisively) was short and neatly tied with a leather cord, barely reaching the middle of his shoulders. Dressed in a brown, sleeveless leather jacket, a long sleeved gray tunic, and black pants with matching boots, he looked like your everyday citizen. Discounting the fact that he was also a potential Jedi student, that is.

And he still wasn't looking at Rosh, as if the former military recruit wasn't worth his time. That was how Rosh chose to interpret it, and it just made him angrier.

His mouth firmly set, Rosh responded to the unheard challenge. He unbuckled his seat restraints and stood up, cracking his neck and stretching for a bit. Narrowing his eyes, the young Penin walked a few steps closer, crossing his arms over his chest, and glared down fiercely at the 'snob'.

This sudden movement drew the attention of the other passengers but that didn't matter to Rosh. All that mattered was putting the snobbish punk in his place.

It was weird; normally, he wasn't really aggressive and usually was slow to anger, but there was something about this guy that that just plain rubbed him the wrong way entirely.

"Say that to my face, you little piece of taun-taun shi-," Rosh began, but the other boy turned his face up and when the two made eye contact, it made a chill run up Rosh's spine.

Those gray-blue eyes... It wasn't their color that so quickly silenced Rosh; rather it was the chilling, emotionless stare emanating from them.

Never before had Rosh never experienced such lack of feeling, nor such an icy cold demeanor before. He imagined that if those eyes had been a weapon, he would be a human popsicle by now. Held fast by the other boy's stare, Rosh's anger was quickly draining away and being replaced by the beginnings of a wary caution. He retreated back two steps and dropped back into his seat, prompting several snorts of amusement and a few chuckles from his audience.

The young Penin's mouth suddenly became dry and queasy as he abruptly realized that those eyes were sizing him up, calculating his threat potential as it were, and coming up with the best way of ... neutralizing him, should the situation call for it.  
Then, just like that, his ice-cold neighbor seemed to dismiss him and casually looked away. With the spell broken, Rosh blinked twice and stared down at his lap, feeling utterly humiliated, confused and angry. Unsure about the wisdom of locking gazes again, he cautiously eyed the other boy who was completely ignoring him. In the process of doing so, Rosh saw a glint of metal that was alongside the other's left thigh. It had escaped his earlier scrutiny and now caught his interest.

Trying to act casual, Rosh craned his neck and sat up straight, trying to get a better view.

The glint of metal turned out to be a metallic cylinder, attached to his antagonist's belt by a thin leather strap. Since it was partially hidden by the armrests, Rosh couldn't exactly say for sure what it was, but he concluded that it did seem to resemble a...lightsaber?

After a moment of indecision, his curiosity won over and Rosh stood up again. From the height advantage, he had a much clearer view of the item. After a few seconds, he silently admitted that it did vaguely resemble Luke Skywalker's lightsaber in the holo-news, if only in length (around fourteen inches) and diameter (an inch and a half).

However, the similarities stopped there. The possible lightsaber looked, for lack of a better term, brand-new, as if it was recently made. But something was wrong with that, because even he knew that lightsabers were highly valuable antiques, well out of range for an average sentient. It wasn't as if there were factories out there mass-producing them.

Rosh therefore decided that it either meant that it was phony or that this guy was incredibly rich and/or had good connections to the black market. There was a niggling suspicion, however, in the back of his mind that it was the genuine article. Jedi training was serious stuff, and to be selected for it was to be considered an honor. In Rosh's opinion, someone had to be a complete idiot to try and impress a Jedi master with such a fake.

His interest was piqued in such a way that Rosh forgot he was supposed to be wary of his neighbor. Wanting to find out more about the 'lightsaber', he blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

"Does that work?" he asked, pointing at the item in question.

Without even looking at him, the other's mouth curled up into the slightest of smirks and said, "None of your business."

Rosh's curiosity transformed into irritation, along with some anger backing it up. 'Snobbish frigid punk,' he thought.

Narrowing his eyes, he asked, "Come on, seriously. Is that for real or not?"

Without changing his tone, his neighbor repeated his answer. "I said, none of your business."

Rosh Penin had grown up in a rather close knit community. He wasn't used to meeting anyone like this ponytailed, coldly brusque snob who he was really starting to dislike. Curiosity be damned, Rosh swore, he would infinitely be better off avoiding any further interaction with him in the future. Besides, a jerk like that deserved to be alone.

Glaring at the punk for one long moment, Rosh quickly made a rude gesture at him, which went unanswered as he'd expected, and went off to sit at the other end of the row.

"Rancor bait," he muttered under his breath, looking off in the opposite direction and left it at that.

That was when two things happened right after the other.

The pilot announced that they were just about to enter Yavin's atmosphere. He was about to continue and say something else when he was interrupted by a yell from the back of the shuttlecraft. As small as the shuttlecraft was, the volume of the cry was sufficient to get everyone's undivided attention.

"EVERYBODY, HOLD ON! WE'RE GOING TO BE ATTACKED!"

For one long moment, there was silence as everyone else absorbed the seemingly ridiculous statement. Then came the staring eyes and gaping mouths (including the pilot) as they regarded the lunatic who, without any reason to, would just go shouting nonsense at the top of her lungs.

The lunatic in question turned out to be the attractive red-haired young woman, whose face was a mask of shock, anxiety, and urgent fear. Before anyone else could say a single word more, her warning soon proved itself accurate as shuttle suddenly shuddered and rocked violently. People who were standing fell down or slammed hard into the walls or against each other.

Confusion and panic soon ensued.

The ceiling lights flickered as the shuttle descent took an abrupt, sharp dive.

The boring, uneventful ride had suddenly transformed into a violent, nearly uncontrollable flight going straight to hell.

The pilot called for everyone to strap themselves in, gripped the controls tightly, and desperately attempted to bring the craft under some semblance of control. His hopes were dashed when another impact, much fiercer than the first, struck the shuttle at the rear and caused a minor explosion to go off.

His eyes widened in realization of the fact that the source was one of the sublight engines. Alarmed, the pilot reacted much more quickly than he thought possible and immediately switched them off, then activated the emergency landing thrusters. Hoping that his passengers were still able to follow his instructions, he repeated his warning for them to secure themselves. Then he blanked out everything else not related to the inevitable crash landing; he would need his entire concentration for the task at hand.

As far as he was concerned, whether or not they would survive would depend on luck, skill, and the Force.

* * *

While the pilot was struggling with the shuttle, he and his passengers had no way of knowing that their descent was being watched.

On top of a Massassi temple, three figures cloaked in black, their identities hidden by raised hoods, watched in varying degrees of satisfaction as the battered transport coasted downward on an increasingly erratic trajectory and leaking smoke from the destroyed engine. The shapely curves on all three clearly indicated that they were of the female persuasion.

The tallest one nodded as she lowered a long, ancient looking scepter, as lengthy as she was tall, and spoke a single word.

"Go."

"Yes Master, as you wish," immediately replied the woman on the left in an excited tone of voice. The figure on the right shook her head and was slower to respond. When she did, however, it was clear she was mocking her companion.

"Yesshh, Masterr. As you...wish."

Their master growled low in her throat and suddenly the scepter was glowing with energy and leveled at them.

"By the Emperor! Stop this nonsense, both of you, before I lose my patience and decide to kill the two of you right now! Just go and do your job, Akane, Allura!"

Seemingly humbled, the two shorter women bowed to her, all the while glaring at each other, and then turned around to walk toward the fifty-odd steps that led back to the ground. Their mutual hatred of each other had been put aside ... at least for the moment. In their minds, each knew that soon, in the near future, a reckoning would be at hand and then, once and for all, only one of them would take their place as their Master's true disciple.

Until then, they would remain rivals, warily observing each other's movements and probing for potential weak points to be taken advantage of. But for now, they had to focus on their mission. The distraction had already been accomplished, courtesy of their Master. All that remained was to finish two simple tasks and their job would be done. Standing as far apart as the steps allowed, they quickly but gracefully descended. On their way down, a small wind suddenly kicked up and momentarily blew back the lower portion of their robes.

Revealing two black and red painted lightsabers.

End Chapter 0

Author's Notes:

I would like to thank (albeit belatedly) Kazaore, damento, New Lord of Darkness, Kyro, Wrath of Air, Dragon Man 180, Sampson 12187, and Wonderbee31 for taking the time to read through theprevious incarnation of thischapter.

Domo Arigatou.

Chapter 1 is about halfway done, but is slowed by my constant little revisions here and there. Oh well, it'll be posted when I feel it's ready.


	2. Chapter 1

Usual disclaimer: I am just borrowing some characters and concepts. 

A Star Wars-Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy/Ranma 1/2 Crossover The Jedi of Chaos

Chapter 1

The heat of Zindarr's red sun bore down mercilessly on Ranma Korr's body.

Following Sensei Galdern's instructions, the young man was currently balancing on his hands, feet high in the air, on a twenty-foot high boulder. And also thanks to his teacher's firm insistence, he was doing it while wearing an old, rough-spun homemade black pants and a light brown short-sleeved tunic. Galdern had said that he himself had used similar clothing during his own training as a Padawan decades ago.

The pants and tunic constantly itched against Ranma's skin, providing a constant source of irritation. Sensei Galdern had told him that once he finished this minor footnote of his training, Ranma would be able to focus on other more important matters while ignoring these minor physical sensations.

It had sounded good to the young student, in the beginning at least. Now, half an hour later, he was regretting it. The urge to throw off the damn clothes and scratch all over his body was growing almost beyond his control.

Not only that, but the sun-baked rock was really starting to hurt even his palms, although hardened and callused from years of intense physical training.

What was worse, his sensei had instructed him to move around on the boulder, and that turned out to be a mixed blessing. Ranma was glad for the chance to relieve his suffering palms, even if temporarily. However, at the same time, the moving of his shoulders caused the tunic to shift about uncomfortably around his neck and chest, increasing the temptation to itch.

Finally, Ranma couldn't take it any more. With a grunt, he bent his arms, lowering himself to the point where his nose almost touched the boulder and then flexed his muscles. After a moment of preparation, he pushed off against the surface, propelling himself a good four feet in the air. A single acrobatic flip was all it took to right himself in midair and land noiselessly in a perfectly balanced defensive stance.

Thus back on his feet, Ranma took the opportunity to start blowing frantically on his nearly toasted palms.

From below, an amused voice remarked, "Giving up so quickly, my young Padawan? The day is still young, you know."

"Hey, you're fortunate that you don't have to deal with this damn heat," Ranma replied, shooting his sensei an irritated glance.

"One of the advantages of being a spectral presence in the Force," Galdern said, a wry grin twisting the corners of his mouth. "By the way, do not think to distract me from ordering you to complete the exercise. You still have a full hour left to go, my young Padawan. So get to---."

* * *

The loud sparking of damaged circuits abruptly woke Ranma up, evaporating the dream memory of his training on Zindarr.

Instantly alert, Ranma looked around him, and upon seeing the damaged and battered interior of the shuttlecraft, he remembered everything that had happened.

The first thing he did was to instinctively check the status of his mental shields that kept his Force energies contained. A moment later, he was satisfied; they were still in place and hadn't been disturbed in the least. Otherwise, the amount of damage and number of casualties, if there were any, would've been greatly increased.

He owed Sensei Galdern for helping him create those shields in order to regain some semblance of control over his chaotic Force potential. Hopefully, this Skywalker person would be able to complete the job and he would be able to continue on with tracking down his bastard stepfather.

Ranma took stock of his condition. Due to being strapped in, he'd received minor injuries only; a bump at the back of his head, a small gash on his forehead, a cut lip, and several bruises on his body. As he unstrapped himself from his seat, the first thing he noticed was that everyone else was either fastened securely in their seats or crumpled in uncomfortable looking positions against the wall or on the floor. Although more than half of them seemed to have acquired serious injuries and broken limbs, it seemed to him that no one had died during the crash landing.

For a normal person, it would've sent him or her into a stunned state while they struggled with shock. For the young Korr, though, he had dealt with much worse, so accepted the situation for what it was.

The interior of the shuttlecraft looked to have fared much worse than its passengers. Torn and ripped wires hung limply from the ceiling, a few sparking from their exposed ends. Several metal plates and duraplastic covers had been ripped from the bolts holding them in place and were scattered everywhere. Some were even deeply embedded in the cushioned areas of the seats that were, luckily enough, unoccupied.

Shit happens. Deal with it, learn from it, and then move on with life. That had been his motto ever since ... the incident.

At least he wasn't, as Sensei Galdern had put it, one with the Force yet. That was thanks to his instincts, which he'd always trusted, even if the signals they sent were initially confusing. That was the reason why he was still alive and relatively uninjured. On more than several occasions in the past, they hadn't failed to save him from certain death and had done so again today.

An instant after the red-head had shouted her warning, his gut had told him, warned him in no uncertain terms that he would be making the last mistake of his life if he were to ignore her words.

So, against all reason and logic, he had followed his gut, and once more, he had benefited from the experience.

Another thing to be grateful for, Ranma supposed.

Enough of that, he chided himself. He still had to check on his fellow passengers, and after that, try to contact the Jedi Temple for help.

Standing up, he went to the nearest person, who incidentally was his neighbor, that loudmouthed guy.

What was his name again?

Ranma shrugged. He didn't know about the other boy, but personally, before the crash, he didn't feel inclined to exchange social pleasantries. In fact, he didn't feel anything, period. It was a result of the type of training sensei Galdern had given him, that "Soul of Ice" technique.  
Whenever it was "activated", like now, all of his emotions were closed off, leaving him as cold as a glacier.

Stepping closer, Ranma gave him a once over. Somehow, his nameless neighbor had also managed to strap himself into his seat, which was impressive enough, given the fact that there had only been a second's worth of warning.

He had to give him credit, if only for that.

Reaching out with his right hand, Ranma tried to shake him awake.

When that failed to rouse him, he unhesitantly reared back and let fly an openhanded slap that echoed within the small confines of the shuttlecraft.

Rosh Penin woke up right away and couldn't help but notice that right in front of him was the indisputable cause of why he'd happened to come to in such an abrupt and painful manner.

"Hey wake up. Nap time's over." Ranma allowed himself the slightest of smirks.

"What the hell?" cursed Rosh. The stinging in his cheek spurring him on, the former Academy recruit impulsively lunged forward, his hands eagerly reaching for Ranma's neck. Ranma was completely caught off guard; fortunately for him, Rosh was still strapped in and thus was prevented from committing attempted homicide.

* * *

Only the fact that there were more important things to deal first kept things nonviolent between the two young men.

Barely.

That didn't stop Rosh from angrily glaring at Ranma, nor did it stop him from throwing several universally understood forms of obscene gestures.

After Rosh had managed to calm down, the two of them had grudgingly introduced themselves to each other and then went about to the task at hand, namely checking their fellow passengers.

Rosh's condition was similar to Ranma's. Other than a few bumps and bruises, he was okay. It turned out that besides the two of them, only a third person, the female Zabrak, had escaped virtually unscathed. The rest were seriously injured and five of them, including the pilot, were in critical condition. They were in very real danger of dying if no proper medical care was given A.S.A.P.

Such was present, in a limited fashion. The female Zabrak turned out to be Nurse Aserna Kowpath'k, formerly of the Zabra Institute of Medicine.

The Zabrak quickly took charge of the wounded, armed with the shuttle's emergency medical pack at her disposal. She ordered Ranma and Rosh to carefully relocate, under her discretion, those who could be moved into one area. Those in critical condition remained where they were, albeit with a bit of minor repositioning. Aserna decided to work on them first.

With limited supplies, she did her best and had expertly patched up what she could, miraculously stabilizing those who needed to be. However, she told the two boys that if her patients were to fully live out their lives, medical treatment much better than what she had to offer at the moment was needed ASAP.

While the good nurse was busy doing her job, Ranma and Rosh both found out that she had the incredible ability to talk incessantly about any subject. The former surmised that it was probably a technique, however odd, to keep her focus or to distract her from the gore factor of her work, he had no idea. Neither did he care. His subconsciousness tagged her voice as "high pitched and sharp with a heavy unknown accent" and filed it away for future reference.

After less than half a minute of hearing her chatter, Ranma easily tuned her out as he went about attempting to raise the Jedi Academy via the subspace radio.

Unfortunately for Rosh Penin, his mental discipline wasn't as developed.

And what made it worse, Rosh had the questionable honor of being chosen to help Aserna as her aide in her ministrations. That meant he had to stick by her side and follow her instructions.

It also meant that he would be forced to endure the full brunt of her chatter. If Ranma had been capable of feeling anything at that moment, he would've pitied him.

Despite only knowing her for a short period of time, Rosh believed that Nurse Kowpath'k was a good-hearted person, a generous, kind soul that offered her help to those who needed it.

But how in the Force could he known that the she would turn out to be such a damned tireless chatterbox! Only after a few minutes of listening to her, Rosh felt the beginnings of a migraine from just trying to find some connection between Aserna's random topic changes.

"Rosh huney, Ah tell yah that Ah've never seen a more han'some, distingish'd, an' chah'min man than that Tarkin fellow. Oooh that man was sooo fine-lookin' that Ah daresay that ev'ry time Ah saw him on th' holovid Ah turned red as a tomayto!"

However, it was apparent that her quirks took some ... make that a LOT of time getting used to. Rosh tried, he really did, but for all his efforts, his patience was losing the struggle.

Not only that, but his eardrums were rapidly growing sore. When would that blasted woman just give it a moment's rest?

"Well, Ah b'lieve that we've hit ah'selves a lucky streak; we all managed ta live thru' th' crash lan'ning. That remin's me, do th' two of ya got a clue as ta what in blazes hit us back there? I dunno 'bout you boys, it shore felt like sum' gud fer nuthin' lowdown rat waylaid us!"

Damn it, why couldn't she have chosen that jerk Korr to be her assistant! A cold-hearted person like that deserved the worst!

"Mah momma and poppa wuz downright th' most randiest couple ya could evah meet. Ah've got ten siblin's, mahself included, five boys an' six gurls! Since both Momma and Poppa were th' only kids in their 'spective fam'lies, it's my guess that they agreed ta have many kids ta make up fer that."

If Rosh knew just how effective the Soul of Ice was against Kowpath'k's drivel, despite his feelings toward Ranma, he would've instantly and shamelessly prostrated himself before the pony-tailed man and beg to be taught it.

"Ah remember th' day when Ah b'lieve mah connection ta th' Force first man'fested itself. Boy, Ah sure made Tommy Syrelyn soil his pants when he found himself bein' pushed 'round by a ghost! Bwah hah hah hah!"

Since Rosh had no such training, he suffered in silence, all the while sending hateful glares at a nonchalant and indifferent Ranma, who was in the cockpit.

As Kowpath'k droned on, the former military recruit envied the other passengers. In his opinion, they had it lucky. Being unconscious, the nurse's prattle had no effect on them.

Rosh found himself wanting to trade places with one of them.

Then in the middle of his misery, something occurred to him. Just how, he wondered, did her patients manage to put up with her back on Zabra?

He eventually guessed that it was maybe an immunity built from an extended length of exposure. For the sake of his ears and nerves, Rosh hoped that one day, he too, would be able to effect a similar reaction, seeing as which he would be seeing a whole lot of her in the near future.

"Y'know, Ah couldn't b'lieve that li'l ol' me was so lucky tah be ad-mitted into this here Acad'my. Ah mean, Ah've susp'cted fer a long time that Ah've had a talunt for th' Force; Ah've always seemed tah know what ailed mah patients wit' a simple touch and a bit o' concentrayshun. Unlike mah other fellaw nurses, Ah've almost never needed those danged maydical diyagnoostic contraptions assigned tah me. No-sirreee! All Ah ever needed was mah instinct and list'nin' ta th' Force."

To Rosh's relief, a welcome moment of silence presented itself as Aserna paused to inject a booster syringe into one of the Twilek female's arm. He sent up a quick prayer of thanks for this respite, and hoped that it would be quite long. His ears gratefully soaked up the serenity of absolute quiet and his tense nerves took the opportunity to relax.

However, his luck soon proved otherwise.

"Now huney, lemme tell ya 'bout th' first time Ah kissed a man. Hooo boy, Ah still get sh'vers frum thinkin' 'bout it. He wuz no Tarkin, Ah admit, but he shore made me see stars!"

Rosh felt an almost uncontrollable urge to start moaning in despair.

* * *

In the cockpit, from what Ranma could ascertain from the checking he'd done so far, main power was down, leaving only backup running at thirty-five percent. It was much better than he'd expected after the extensive damage sustained by the shuttle.

At the moment, he was simutaneously ignoring Rosh's predicament and tinkering with the shuttle's communication console, trying to get a signal in order to raise the Jedi Temple on a general frequency.

Although he absolutely loathed his step-father, Ranma did acknowledge that the training he recieved from his various instructors, courtesy of Genma's proclaimed 'old acquaintances', had been extremely thorough and comprehensive. Along with the martial arts, mobile target shooting, combat piloting and the rest, there'd been a good amount of technical training involved, part of which was basic electronics troubleshooting and repair.

As he worked, Ranma went over the events that had happened just before the crash...

The pilot announced that they were just about to enter Yavin's atmosphere. He was about to continue and say something else when he was interrupted by a yell from the back of the shuttlecraft. As small as the shuttlecraft was, the volume of the cry was sufficient to get everyone's undivided attention.

"EVERYBODY, HOLD ON! WE'RE GOING TO BE ATTACKED!"

If he remembered correctly, it was the redheaded young woman, currently unconscious with a broken left arm, who had screamed that warning, moments before it had actually happened.

It also didn't surprise Ranma, or mystify him either; having flashes or visions of the future was just one of the many different ways of how the Force might express itself within an individual. Sensei Galdern had taught him much of the pre-Empire Jedi Order and of the Force.

But that was just a minor footnote; the most important thing was that something had happened to cause the engine to explode like that.

Ranma's eyes narrowed in thought while his mouth curled into a frown. He considered what facts he knew. A New Republic shuttlecraft, unarmed and practically defenseless, minding its own business and carrying only passengers, attacked within New Republic space.

The Soul of Ice technique worked by locking away a person's emotions. With Ranma, it enabled him to think more clearly, more logically. In this case, it aided the young Korr in trying to find out what had been responsible for the attack by creating a list of possible causes for an engine explosion, and then let elimination do its work.

Whatever had caused it sure wasn't a coolant leak, although such a thing would lead to the engine heating up and eventually exploding. Nor was it the extremely remote possibility of a collision with meteor debris; the shuttle's sensors would've alerted the pilot way ahead of time.

No, just like what the redhead had warned them about, it had been an attack. No question about it.

There was a possibility of the source being a fighter craft or a pirate ship, but Ranma didn't give that theory much credit; the shuttlecraft's radar would have detected them instantly.

Thus the only thing that seemed to fit picture was either some sort of highly focused energy beam, maybe a type of a ground laser cannon emplacement, or from a RGT (Remote Guided Torpedo). It was the most plausible answer he could come up at the moment.

Unfortunately, as he would find out much later, both guesses were wrong.

* * *

"The shuttle's communication equipment is damaged beyond my ability to repair it," Ranma began. He then held up a small, square box with an attenna attached in the middle. "We will have to use this emergency beacon locator to get the attention of the Jedi Temple, if we hope for any sort of rescue."

Ranma's announcement from up in the cockpit saved Rosh's sanity, though it hadn't been his intention to do so. It sufficiently distracted Nurse Kowpath'k enough that she shut her trap to listen, thereby earning a loud groan of relief from Rosh and the four other passengers who had regained consciousness. In Rosh's opinion, this was fortunate, because his tolerance was already way too close at the edges of its limits.

He paused, thinking over things, and walked past the two of them and their patients, disappearing in the shadows at the rear of the shuttlecraft.

"Mr. Korr? What are you doing?" Aserna asked, though no answer followed.

It was dark, but the scant illumination enamating from several still active circuit lights helped Ranma navigate his way through the mess of fallen metal plates and dangling wires. He arrived at his destination, the storage section, and using his foot, he counted off, left to right, the number of compartment pods. When he reached the seventh one, he crouched and shoved off the junk that had fallen on top of it in the crash.

When that was done, he opened it with the security code he had entered when he first boarded the shuttle.

Back at where Rosh and Aserna were, the Zabrak nurse was asking Rosh if he was Ranma's friend. Of course, Rosh's answer was simple and clear.

"What? That, that cold-hearted son of a motherless Hutt MY friend? Hah! I'd rather space myself or fly right into the heart of a supernova than be friends with that damned prick," Rosh muttered, his voice rising. "Look Aserna, that guy is probably one of the rudest, most antagonistic person I'd ever had the displeasure of meeting!"

Aserna threw him a confused look, then shrugged her shoulders, clearly confused at what Rosh's meaning.

"Nevermind," Rosh said, smirking wryly. "Hang around him for only a few minutes than you'll know what I'm talking about."

"Oh okay, if you say so," she allowed dubiously. They fell silent, (a fact that Rosh mentally gave much thanks for) awaiting Korr to finish whatever he was doing.

Her response was interrupted at Ranma's return; everyone awake stared at the young human, noting a few changes in his dress apparel.

The boots were the same but he had taken off his leather jacket, and his gray tunic had been replaced with a light green shirt and he now wore dark brown pants. A heavily modified military model blaster was holstered on his right hip while his lightsaber lay against his other, clipped to his belt. He also had strapped on a black traveling pack.

"Hey boy, what's with the change of clothes? Goin' huntin'?" one of the passengers cracked in amusement, his head heavily bandaged.

Ranma ignored him and asked if anyone else had blasters, or any kind of weapon.

The pilot, who was barely conscious, said, "Yeah, I got one. It's beneath the seat in the cockpit."

Ranma went and retrieved it, then asked, "Does anyone know how to handle a blaster?"

Rosh nodded his head; the Rodian lifted his hand and the pilot croaked an affirmative. Narrowing his eyes, Ranma seemed to come to a decision and gestured in the Rodian's direction.

"You."

"The name's Dah'kk," said the skinny,light-blue Rodian, his high-pitched voice sounding through an electronic translator that somehow made it through the crash in one piece.

Ranma fixed him with a cool, firm gaze. "With the exception of me, Kowpath'k and Penin, you're the least wounded, with only a dislocated shoulder that's already been treated. Was it your dominant arm?"

Dah'kk shook his head.

"Good, the blaster's yours," Ranma declared, moving closer to him and handing the pilot's blaster over, along with a spare power pack. "It's your responsibility to defend Aserna and the others with your life from the native wildlife, should they start sniffing around here and prove to be a threat."

Not giving Dah'kk a chance to refuse, Ranma's gaze switched over to Rosh, who instantly glared back at him and said testily,"What's your problem? Who died and made you boss?"

Ranma regarded him with an expressionless gaze. "You are coming with me."

Rosh's lips curled down in a challenging sneer. "Go kiss a Hutt!"

* * *

With an angry snarl on his lips, Rosh impatiently waited for the other man to climb back down the hundred odd foot tree.

"Damned stuck-up freakish son of a..." muttered the youth under his breath, having continually cursing Ranma with all sorts of wonderfully descriptive sobriquets during their trek through Yavin's forest.

It had been nearly twenty minutes since they left the shuttle, and by Rosh's estimation, they'd walked at least half a mile. Rosh had been coerced into obeying Korr's command after experiencing, courtesy of Ranma, the 'Glare of Death', as he later nicknamed it. This, of course, had made Rosh feel completely humiliated, which in turn led to him being pissed off to no end. Also, the fact that Korr was obviously indifferent of Rosh's opinion of him and simply ordered him around like some sort of servant just increased his anger.

Despite his fear of Korr, Rosh was near his breaking point. So far, he hadn't responded physically to his nemesis's blunt, cold-shouldered attitude because he had a definite feeling that Korr was definitely someone NOT to be messed around with.

Heck, even just being on the recieving end of the 'Glare of Death' was enough to greatly intimidate him, and he harbored notions of wringing the jerk's neck. Seeds of revenge were buries And the humiliation of having to back down made him angry, thus planting seeds of vengeful thoughts.

And even worse, the bastard had kept both blaster and lightsaber for himself, and had given Rosh only the beacon to hold. Well, he'd have to do something about that!

As soon as Korr was down from the tree, he was immediately barraged by a swarm of questions, courtesy of Rosh.

"What the hell were you doing up there? Where do you get off by hogging all the damn weapons? And will you look at me when I'm talking to you?"

Korr glanced calmly at him, then bent down and picked up his pack. As he wrapped the pack securely around his back, he said, "There's a nearby Massassi temple, a few miles to the southeast. It will be a good place to send up the distress signal with the beacon."

"Well, why couldn't you have sent it while you were up there? Or haven't you noticed how tall these trees are?"

"It still doesn't work."

"Why not?" Rosh bit off.

"All of these trees aren't exactly the same height, meaning some are a little bit taller. I did try, and yes, there was signal, but it was unstable, erratic. All the vegetation and wood must be interfering with the ability of the beacon to maintain the transmission."

Rosh shrugged, not the least bit mollified. "Okay then, how about you giving me that blaster. I DO need something to protect myself, you know."

"No."

"No?" Rosh repeated, then said with more force, "What do you mean NO?"

Ranma's steel gaze skewered him as the ponytailed man regarded him icily. "No, I won't allow you to have it."

By now, Rosh was struggling trying to keep his rage in check. "And, why...the...hell..not?" he grinded out, clenching his fists tightly.

This time, it was Ranma who shrugged as he answered, "I don't know you and I don't trust you. I don't usually make it a habit of allowing armed people I don't trust at my back. Considering your attitude towards me, you'll probably be tempted to shoot me when I'm not looking."

Rosh absorbed that, processed it, and then decided that there was a hidden insult within Korr's words. Completely forgetting that he was easily intimidated by him, Rosh's eyes narrowed as he asked, "Are you saying that I'm not a threat at all, unarmed, and at your back?"

Korr took all of one second to think up an appropriate response. "Exactly." And then, "Let's go. We're wasting time here." With that, he turned away and started walking again.

His face screwing up in growing anger, Rosh made an extremely rash decision right there and then, one that he would very quickly come to regret. His body trembled, his fists rose up, and he growled like some rabid beast.

"What the hell is your damned problem, ya prick? What, you have a proton torpedo up your ass or something? Gimme that blaster, NOW!"

No response had been forthcoming; not even the slightest pause in Ranma's footsteps as he continued as if Rosh hadn't spoken at all.

That was final straw. Simply put, Rosh snapped.

"DIE KORR!" Not very imaginative, but that was what he was thinking of at the moment.

He broke out into a run, charging directly at Ranma's back and threw himself into the air, intending to knock down his opponent and gladly beat him into submission.

Well, that was the plan anyway.

He wasn't exactly sure what happened, but in mid-leap, Ranma just seemed to ... disappear, leaving Rosh to crash facefirst onto the ground. Before he even think to get up, his left arm was twisted behind his back and he felt Korr's knee in the middle of his spine.

"Hey, hey, what the---? Let me go, ya jerk! Let me go or I'll kick your ass!"

This time, there was a response from Ranma. Unfortunately for Rosh, it involved his arm being pushed higher up. This wouldn't had been a problem if it weren't for the sudden pain and obvious threat of a broken arm.

"Ow! Ow! Ow! Okay, okay okay man, chill man, chill! Take it easy, c'mon, take it easy! Ouch, damnit!"

"Listen to me, Penin, I'm just going to say this once. Shut up."

Ranma's tone was completely emotionless, and all business. For Rosh, he was certain that the 'Glare of Death' mask was in place. Remembering Ranma's cold, killer-like eyes, his fear suddenly came flooding back, stealing his rage, and left him feeling cold all over. Though he didn't like it, Rosh forced himself to be silent, difficult as it was.

"We have a job to do; I don't have to remind you that Aserna and everyone else is counting on us to get help from the Temple. Also, if it hasn't crossed your mind, we ARE in a crisis. Don't you remember how we landed on Yavin? It was no sudden engine malfunction, no abrupt coolant leak, not any kind of electronical failure. It was just like that red-headed woman said, we WERE ATTACKED. Shot down. Now, that signifies people behind the act, maybe pirates, maybe enemies of Skywalker, or paid assassins, I have no idea. But I do know that there is a very high probability that they are still out there and will want to finish what they started, or at the very least, check on their work."

"Now, here's what's going to happen. I am going to release you, and you are going to get up slowly, and we are going to continue on our journey. But, I swear, if you ever, EVER, try to attack me, physically or verbally otherwise, I will NOT hesitate to shoot you where you stand. DO. YOU. UNDERSTAND. ME?"

Finding that he had no other choice, Rosh had to say the inevitable.

"Yeah, yeah I do."

"Good." With that, Ranma let go of his arm and stood up, retreating a few steps back.

Muttering under his breath, Rosh slowly pushed himself to his knees, wincing at the lingering pain in his left arm. Sullenly, he rose to his feet, quickly throwing a glare Ranma's way, who ignored it.

'Heh, I'll catch him off guard when he DOESN't have any weapons, the idiot!' Rosh thought in anticipation.

Right at that moment, ahead of them, several bushes rustled and a dark shape walked out, heading straight for them.

Rosh blinked in surprise; the shadows were too dark to see anything clearly but the vague form wasn't humanoid. It was probably some dumb, hungry, carnivorous beast attracted by the sound of their (extremely) short-lived struggle.

Wait a second. Rewind. Hungry...carnivorous...beast?

As the beast advanced, patches of light revealed it to be some sort of reptile, around the size of a big dog. Its mouth opened, revealing an impressive array of razor sharp teeth, and a loud hiss filled the sudden silence.

The young Penin's face turned pale and his throat suddenly dried up as he suddenly realized two important things.

One, he was completely unarmed, and Two, he was closer to the predator than Korr.

Before he could start panicking, before he could even THINK, the sound of a blaster being fired echoed from behind him and he saw a single laser bolt flash past him and, somehow, incredibly, strike the reptile directly in the middle of its head. The hiss immediately died out and it slumped gracelessly to the forest floor.

Rosh almost gave himself a whiplash as his head whipped quickly around to look at his tormentor. Ranma gazed back at him coolly, the blaster already holstered, and began walking forward as if nothing had happened. The ponytailed man casually stepped over the corpse and waved for his stupefied companion to follow.

Rosh gaped as he noted the seemingly inhuman pinpoint accuracy of the shot; over a good distance of twenty feet! A renewed chill ran up his spine as the young Penin finally realized the truth...

All this time, he'd been playing with fire.

End Chapter 1

Began March 08 2006 Finished May 26, 2006

Author's Notes:

Well, with the speed of a crippled turtle, Chapter 1 is finally done. Apologies for the long wait, but RL kinda interfered.

C&C will be greatly appreciated...thanks! Oh yeah, and if you have a suggestion for the title of this chapter, by all means, send it my way.


	3. Chapter 2

Yep, another revision :D 

Disclaimer: The Force is NOT my ally. I am NOT a Jedi...

A Star Wars-Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy/Ranma 1/2 Crossover

Warning: If you prefer to read about a canon-like Akane, then I suggest, by all means, that you might not want to read this chapter.

The Jedi of Chaos  
C&C from Elsa Bibat implemented  
Chapter 2 (version 1.01)

Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master and head of the Jedi Academy was interrupted in the middle of his meditation.

'Luke, we have an urgent situation.' It was a telepathic summons from Kyle Katarn, a self-taught Jedi who was now temporarily serving as an instructor for the Academy.

Returning to the real world, Luke uncrossed his legs and stood up. He took a couple of steps towards the entrance of the meditation chamber but suddenly halted. His eyes narrowed and he sent out his Force senses to search the entire floor he was on.

'That's odd, I could have sworn that I felt the barest flickers of a Dark Side presence,' he thought, probing harder and thoroughly around the general area where he'd sensed it.

However, after nearly five minutes of concentrated searching, Luke had found nothing. It still troubled him but he soon reasoned it to be the remaining presence of Gantoris, one of his students who had fallen to the Dark Side and had paid for his folly with his life.

Well, he'd look into it later; right now, the Force impressions he was getting from Kyle took first priority.

The door swished closed behind him as Luke walked out into the hallway.

Barely twenty feet from the meditation chamber, Allura Takthan of the Disciples of Ragnos, slowly let out a sigh of relief as Skywalker's probing finally stopped. It had been close; she had barely escaped his scrutiny by the tiniest of margins.

Thanks to Mistress Tavion's teaching, the red skinned Twi-lek had learned how to dampen her Force aura, which had certainly come in handy during her infiltration of this Jedi Academy.

Thanks to Brakiss, an Imperial plant that had posed as a potential student for Skywalker, the Disciples of Ragnos had valuable intel on the structure and layout of the Academy. It was this information Allura was now using as a guide in this phase of her mission.

If someone had taken the luxury of asking her, Allura would have said this was a waste of her time. She would've preferred to eliminate the new arrivals but Mistress Tavion's selection of her for this job had not been up for debate. The founder and leader of the Disciples of Ragnos had told her that since she was considerably more proficient at stealth techniques than her human rival was, her chances of success were that much higher.

How true that was. Allura allowed a self-satisfied smile grace her lips.

In the five years since they first met, Crimson had always been singleminded when it came to training in the Force. The shorter human female had, in the course of her training, almost solely focused on the combative aspects including lightsaber training along with all of the offensive techniques powered by the Dark Side.

Allura, on the other hand, had chosen to be more versatile in her own training. Like her rival, she had also chosen to focus more than a little on lightsaber training; in that respect, she was quite skilled, though not Crimson's equal, at least not yet. Aside from that, she had learned only a few offensive techniques, as well as a decent number of others that focused on manipulating other people with the Force.

Also, her ability to channel the Force through her body to temporarily boost her physical talents was on a much higher level than Crimson's own. That was what allowed her to keep up with, and even sometimes defeat, her rival whenever they had a 'practice match.'

Aside from mastering the basic instruction, Crimson had very limited control over her Force aura. Had she been chosen for this mission instead, it was a sure bet that her blazing presence in the Force would've given her away almost immediately.

Thus, the reason why it had fallen to Allura to do the job.

During their briefing, upon hearing Allura's part in the mission, Crimon had nearly laughed her fool head off and had commented that "only such a weak, sneaky girl would be given such a pathetically easy task."

For that, her head had indeed very nearly come off as an insulted Allura had swung at her using a decapitation technique. It was only Crimson's reflexes which had allowed her to keep her head on,  
and a impromptu lightsaber duel had broken out right there in the meeting room.

It had been cut short courtesy of Tavion. Although she usually enjoyed and even generally encouraged such hostile displays of murderous rivalry, Tavion had made it well known in the beginning that nothing trivial such as heated rivalry would interfere with a mission. And since both of her students had broken that rule, she instantly set into motion their punishment.

One powerful lightning assault later, both of her disciples had been instantly subdued.

There had been little to be gained with further dispute, and so Allura had finally accepted that,  
barring her Mistress, she was the only one suitable for the job.

Which was why she was here right now.

The suppression of her Force aura inevitably condemned her mission to proceed at a very slow pace. Disliking every second of it, Allura had to sneak into the Jedi Academy the old-fashioned way; no mind-tricks, no Force enhanced speed or jumps, nothing that would require use of the Force.

She had to rely on hiding, crawling, and generally trying her best not to be seen or heard.

One thing that made it a whole lot easier for her was the fact that Skywalker was foolish enough not to post watch, or even have more than the basic security system, one that hadn't been upgraded ever since Brakiss' stay a few years ago.

She shook her head in scornful disbelief. As far as the Twi'lek was concerned, this was part of the reason why the Jedi were so easily deceived by Emperor Palpatine during the death of the Old Republic.

Their teachings against the use of guile, anger, hatred, everything of the Dark Side was a very exploitable weak spot in their training.

Shaking her head to clear it and once again focusing on the job at hand, Allura made her way to the staircase. According to Brakiss's information, Skywalker's chamber was on the third floor.

Good thing that she had managed to steal this Jedi robe from an instructor's room; it certainly made for a convenient disguise. She had left her own distinctive black robes with Mistress Tavion's group back at the Massassi Temple.

She'd better get a move on before someone noticed that she was an unfamiliar face. There was some data that she had to copy, after all.

* * *

Somewhere in the vast forest of Yavin, Tavion's other disciple and Allura's hated rival was doing what she loved best.

Hunting down and disposing of two men.

Crimson reached out with the Force and, with some difficulty, managed to locate the nearest of her prey. There were two of them and were relatively close; about a mile away to the south. It was obvious to her that they had been selected among the survivors to get help; clearly their communications was damaged and could not be repaired.

Of her male prey, from what little she could get from 'reading' their Force aura's, it seemed that they would be hardly any threat to her, much less to her and her two subordinates. She could only base that assumption on the size of their Force aura's. Though she hated to admit it to herself, that Twi-lek bitch's senses were far more acute and accurate than hers.

One of the two male pigs was considerably strong in the Force, though the uncontrolled way his aura was leaking meant that he was untrained. The other possessed significantly less potential than his companion; to her, he was barely a shadow in the Force. In fact, it was so small that Crimson wondered why the fool even chose to train to be a Jedi.

Was Skywalker that foolish and desperate to rebuild the Jedi Order that he would accept anyone, no matter how little their potential?

No, Crimson decided. Mistress Tavion had told them many times to not underestimate Luke Skywalker; he was a force to be reckoned with. If the reports about him were to be believed, he had singlehandedly destroyed Darth Vader AND the Emperor in one stroke.

Skywalker had to have a reason why he'd taken on a student with so little Force potential; the Disciples just didn't know it yet.

Still in her black cloak, Crimson continued leading her two subordinates, Narissa and Talna, on a path that would carry them towards an intercept point with their two future victims.

While she'd informed Mistress Tavion that she was more than capable of eliminating a handful of untrained Jedi-wannabes, Tavion had crisply informed her that it was more for her subordinates benefit than for hers. Her subordinates were both human also, skilled and well motivated, but their training wasn't finished yet and they needed more field experience.

Although they were both taller and older than her, Narissa being the oldest and Talna the tallest, such things didn't mean a thing in the ranks of the Disciples of Ragnos. The only thing that mattered was the Force, or rather the Dark Side of it, and how you used it.

When the two of them were first assigned to her, Crimson had quickly established herself as the Alpha Female by simply giving them both a thorough beatdown with her superior Dark Side mastery when they had challenged her.

Ever since she'd first joined Mistress Tavion's group, Crimson had made it well known that she completely loathed and distrusted men, not tolerating them in the slightest. As a matter of fact, the first day she joined the Disciples of Ragnos, she had nearly killed a man who had tried to come on to her.

She became a figure to be feared, someone you would not want to cross paths with, even accidentally. Tavion allowed her behavior because it helped instill order and tighter control over the underlings.

With an attitude like that, it wasn't long before she was picking fights on a daily basis with any male member who glanced at her. More often than not, it would end with them being savagely beaten. She soon established a reputation for herself as a genuine man-hater, who would go to any lengths to right the wrong done to her in the past by the one of THEM.

By teaching them such lessons, she would force them to think twice before even attempting to abuse any women in their future.

She would not let any of her own be subjected to the torture that she had been through as a child and a teenager. That was why when Tavion had approached her with the offer to join the Disciples of Ragnos, she'd snapped it up immediately once she heard how much stronger she could become.

To her mind, that meant she would not have to fear about being abused by any man ever again.

Due to her stance, none of the male Disciples were in any hurry to sign up as her apprentice, having long learned to give her a very wide berth.

Although Crimson was of the opinion that the Disciples of Ragnos should only be a sisterhood, she managed, however barely, to restrain herself from constantly trying to convince Tavion to accept her idea.

As powerful as Crimson become, she still respected Tavion as her Mistress and superior. She was a woman after all.

Thus the reason why Narissa and Talna had been assigned to her. There were others who'd been with the Disciples of Ragnos longer and were more experienced, but they were unfortunately men. The other women either were already assigned to their masters/mistresses or had other duties to fulfill.

Since Crimson had threatened to kill any man who dared come close to her, the only way to rectify this was to give her underlings of similar gender.

Tavion, and only Tavion, was allowed to call her by her forgotten name.

Crimson snorted inwardly; she couldn't dream of how she could have ever been naive, weak willed, and easily dominated way back then. The only things her past self and her now had in common was the hatred of males, though different in intensity and perspective. Her past self had hated teenaged boys but tolerated men. Crimson hated any man, teenage to adult, of any species with equal fervor.

To her, it was as if she lived two separate, different lives with no period of transition in between.

All in all, having subordinates wasn't such a bad arrangement. In fact, it could be downright pleasurable. It took some time and effort, but Narissa was slowly becoming to enjoy being involved in certain activities of Crimson's, which made for more than a few nights of indulgence.

Crimson allowed a faint lecherous grin to cross her face at what happened some nights ago, but managed to keep her mind on the mission. Yavin's forest wasn't exactly safe, having its fair share of predatory beasts, but they weren't of any considerable threat if the three of them kept on their guard.

The young Disciple of Ragnos was looking forward to the three following things; the rush and thrill of combat, the destruction of men, and also the whittling down the numbers of her enemies.

She didn't personally know who her prey was but she didn't care. They were men, and at some point, had probably hurt a female in the past, like the way she'd been hurt. Even if they hadn't hurt a woman yet, it was inevitable that they would do so in the not too distant future.

It was their nature; they were men, after all, and it was to be expected of them.

Crimson was their punishment made flesh.

Of course, she'd let Talna and Narissa into some of the fun as well, but there was always a possibility that she would lose herself in her lust for battle and kill them all.

Well, all of the males, that is; if there were any women, she'd let Talna and Narissa take care of them in order to see exactly what her subordinates were made of. Crimson disliked taking the lives of any female, however misguided though they be.

They were getting closer, and as the distance decreased, her eagerness grew.

"Soon, very soon," she chanted out loud, unconsciously rubbing her thumb against the hard, cool surface of her lightsaber.

Behind her, Talna and Narissa traded looks of mutual apprehension. Talna had been with the Disciples a couple of months longer than Narissa had, but this was their first time together to be on what they considered a real mission.

They had heard tons of rumours about the times when Crimson had gotten too carried away, and well, from all accounts it hadn't been a pretty sight.

The male members of the Disciples of Ragnos were dead certain that Crimson's sanity was slowly peeling away and went to great lengths to avoid her. They sure as hell didn't want to be near when she finally went off.

Her two subordinates began to consider themselves very unlucky; after all, they were pretty much stuck with her, like it or not. Despite their doubts, they had to follow her wherever she went.

Yet, as they did so, they couldn't help but have a very bad feeling about this mission.

With a swing of the lightsaber, the tree fell down across the looming ravine, creating an instant bridge.

Deactivating the energy blade, Ranma nodded in satisfaction. Waiting for the tree to stabilize, he stepped up on the trunk and casually strolled over to the other side, not giving the raging torrent below a second look. Once he reached the other side, he motioned for Rosh to walk across.

Rosh shrugged in reluctanct compliance. Ever since their little 'discussion' fifteen minutes ago, he had treaded the waters with a mixture of fear, hatred and respect. Though it had been difficult at first, he'd kept silent and avoided any sort of conversation with Korr.

After he saw how deadly a shot Korr was, Rosh was convinced that maybe he shouldn't try and push his luck; one could never know if Korr wouldn't shoot him on the spot next time.

Besides, Rosh was worried for the wounded back at the shuttlecraft. He knew that if he wasted more time by stirring up Korr's nest of hornets, their chances of living to see another day would be severely decreased.

In any case, he was still unarmed and, whether he liked it or not, was forced to rely on Ranma for protection, no matter how much it wounded his pride. However, dwelling on his wounded pride was quickly beginning to be replaced by jealousy.

To date, they'd already encountered three more of those reptiles, and Ranma had easily nailed them all with headshots each and every time. The ponytailed man made it look so effortless that Rosh wasn't sure if he was showing off or not.

One of those shots had been made while the reptile had leaped down towards them from a branch thirty-odd feet above the ground.

Rosh had only caught the descending blur a second before he was roughly shoved aside and, one quick laser blast later, the beast's corpse had crashed in the spot where he'd been.

Since then, Rosh was trying hard to ignore how much he envied the skills Ranma had displayed. He found himself failing as he continuously replayed what had happened. And he also found himself wondering about Korr's personality.

This led to him wondering what kind of life the other man had previously led, what kind of training he'd undergone to become what he was now.

As he considered Korr's seemingly impossible accuracy with the blaster along with his attitude, a very unpleasant possibility presented itself to him.

Was he trained as an assassin?

Rosh quickly began sweating and grew very nervous with that idea. He reflexively looked at Korr's profile and began considering it with what he knew of the other man. So far, Korr had displayed fewer emotions than a computer and maintained an ice-cold personality.

On the other hand, assassins weren't known for being humanitarian; Korr had already shown, however briefly, that he'd been concerned about the injured people back at the shuttlecraft. Then again, he could be faking it as some sort of camouflage or something like that.

Damn! Rosh's fear soon developed into confusion. He didn't know what to think anymore; his theories, observations, and imagination began chasing each other in circles.

He began to feel an urge to scream out loud to the sky and rip his hair out. Such was the magnitude of the influence Korr had on him. Damn it all! Unfortunately, he soon discovered that it was a very bad idea to ignore where one was walking. His right foot, while stepping forward, abruptly found itself bumping into the slightly charred end of the fallen tree. And since the height between the ground and the tree were different...

"What th---!"

Splat.

"Owwwwww..."

All things considered, Rosh should've been grateful. Although he did almost knock himself senseless (and rather painfully) on the rough, unyielding wood, it was the tree that kept him from falling to certain death into the ravine.

Of course as usual, Ranma was completely blunt in his response. There was no 'Glare of Death' this time, though there was the slightest traces of what could've been exasparation in his eyes.

"Penin, you klutz. What's the matter with you? Quit screwing around; we don't have time to waste. Get up or I'll leave you behind."

Having said his piece, Ranma then proceeded to start climbing a nearby tree, wanting to check their progress towards the Massassi temple and see if they were still on track.

"Damnit! I'm in pain here, you idiot! You could at least help me up, you know?" Unfortunately, either Ranma was ignoring him or he was already too high up to have heard.

Still lying facedown on the tree bridge, Rosh had missed Ranma climbing up into the three. Groaning in self pity, he lamented that this was not one of his better days. As he slowly got up, Rosh reached up to feel his face and cursed loudly.

A large bruise was already forming on the right side and he knew that he would look like half of something the cat dragged in.

Crap, this was Ran--, no wait, it was his own fault for not paying attention where he was going. While Rosh might be stubborn and hard-headed at times, he was not in the habit of blaming his problems on other people. At least, not all the time.

Carefully making his way over to the other side, he looked around for Korr. When he couldn't find him, Rosh was beginning to grow angry at being left behind. Regardless of the abuse heaped upon him by Korr, he didn't really believe the cold-blooded sociopath would have done that to him.

"Emperor's damnation!" he cursed, then impulsively dashed off into the jungle. "Korr, you bastard! Where the hell are you?"

Within seconds, he was lost from sight.

Eight minutes later, Ranma dropped down from the branch into a crouched stance. He looked around, a small frown tugging at the corners of his mouth when he noticed his companion's disappearance.

"How...inconvenient," he stated. "I should have had the Rodian come with me instead of him."

* * *

At his vigil near the shuttlecraft's open side hatch, Dah'kk was fervently wishing that he'd switched places with Penin. The Zabrak nurse was nice, but gods above and below, her nonstop chatter was really getting on his nerves!

"Y' wanna know sumthin' funny? Ah wuz accident'ly engaged ta two guys back in med school, and Ah didn't even know it! They wuld buy me all sorts 'f gifts and treat me ta all th' best rest'rants; dear o' dear, Ah wuz in heav'n, don'cha know? Half th' time, I didn't even hav' ta spend a dime on myself 'n food an' entertainin' myself. Oh gosh, Ah wish I culd go back ta thos' days. Hey huney, d'ya think Luke Skywalk'r will treat us all ta a 'Welcom' New Students' party bash or sumthin' like it. I sur' wish he does! He sounds like a very nice man, don'cha think so? An' anuther thin'..."

The Rodian wasn't the only one who was suffering. The others who were awake, including the pilot, two of the Twi-leks, and one of the Kel-dor males were all unfortunately experiencing the same thing.

They really needed to be rescued, now more than ever.

Dah'kk's right round-shaped, black filled eye was twitching. At the moment, he was seriously thinking about shooting himself to end the pain. At the rate Aserna was carrying on, he didn't know if he could hold on to his sanity for long.

"Hey y'all, Ah hav an idear! Since this 's sorta like a campout, let's sing sum songs! Ah'll start! Ah luv ya, ya luv me; we're a happy family! With a great big hug..." 1

The indigenous wildlife near the shuttle were minding their own business until they were startled by several loud cries that shouted in agonized unison.

"NOOOOO! MAKE IT STOP, OH PLEASE, MAKE IT STOP!"

At that instant in the Jedi Academy, while listening to Katarn, Luke Skywalker's body noticeably stiffened.

"We lost track of the shuttle soon after it entered Yavin's atmosphere... Luke, what's wrong?"

The tow-headed Jedi Master had suddenly looked up at the ceiling, having barely registered Kyle's words.

He said in a distant tone of voice, "I just felt a minor disturbance in the Force...as if a handful of voices suddenly cried out in agony and were being subjected to some sort of horrible torture nearby. We have to move quickly, or else we won't have any new trainees left to teach. Kyle, please go gather the senior students and get them ready. We leave in fifteen minutes."

"You got it, Luke."

* * *

Rosh Penin had lost track of how much time had elapsed since Korr had disappeared and left him behind. For that matter, he didn't really care.

Less than a minute after he began searching for him, Rosh arrived at the conclusion that he didn't need to waste time looking for Korr. He still had the beacon, and the injured people at the shuttlecraft still needed help.

So with all that in mind, he'd switched priorities, kicking 'Search for Ponytailed Prick' down to the bottom of the list and bringing up 'Locate Massassi Temple'.

He'd already climbed up a tree to check his position. It was with relief he'd discovered that he was only slightly off track. He'd long since corrected and periodically rechecked his course.

After a while, he began to rant out loud; not one of his better ideas, as he would come to regret later.

"Stupid Ranma. It's all his fault I'm in this godforsaken jungle. Dammit, why the hell did he have to force me to go with him, that cold-blooded nutcase. I could've been safely back in the shuttle, waiting to be rescued!"

Rosh took a moment to reconsider his words.

"I take that back. There's no way in hell that I'd place myself back in the shuttle just to be tortured by that air-headed ditzy nurse! Man, now that I think about it, I should've never applied to the Military Academy."

He took a moment to take a breather and then continued on.

"And I could've been home at a barbecue!2 Stupid Korr, this is all your fault!"

"Instead here I am, trudging through this humid, vegetation-filled crap, sweating like a rancor in heat, with hungry, man-eating predators hiding all around me, just waiting to get a taste of the good old #6 Penin meat special!"

Rosh shook his head in disgust and threw a fruitless glare at forest.

He really should have been more careful of what he was saying.

Rosh didn't know what warned him; some instinct or maybe the Force. All he knew was that he sensed something moving towards him from the right. He turned, looked, and immediately started running for his life.

He would've spat a short curse but time was a precious commodity at the moment. Thus, he made sure to hold the beacon securely against his chest and focused all his energy into running. Rosh didn't get a clear look, but what little he'd seen was more than enough.

Anyone with sense would do their utmost best to get away from a large, dark-red furry feline-like beast running at them with sharp, gleaming teeth.

As he ran, Rosh mentally added yet another thing to the list that was Korr's fault.

Somewhere behind Rosh, Ranma was quickly tree-hopping his way towards the Massassi temple, oblivious to the other man's predicament.

At the same time, elsewhere ahead of Rosh, three cloaked and hooded figures paused. Sensing that one of the two were rapidly coming their way, they arranged for an appropriate welcome.

Lines of sweat cascaded down Rosh's face as he frantically pumped his legs to go faster and faster. He didn't dare to look behind him to see how close his pursuer was; he knew how these things worked, he'd seen it happen on those holovid movies after all.

The second he turned his head, he would trip over an exposed root or vine and it would be all over for Alina Penin's oldest boy.

Thus he forced out all thoughts on how much his legs hurt, how hard it was getting to breathe, EVERYTHING, and just plain focused on staying more than one step ahead of it.

Leaves and small branches slapped at his face and body, the rapid rhythm puffs of air flew from his mouth, the adrenaline sparking through his body, Rosh had never felt so alive before. Then again, he had good reason to.

For the most part, he ran on, partially blind. This part of the forest was very dark, with only small patches of light to help him negotiate his way. It was enough so he was able to avoid being clotheslined by any low hanging branch.

Whenever he would think that he couldn't go on any further, the image of being painfully torn limb from limb spurred him on.

After what seemed to be several minutes of being chased (though in actuality was only twenty seconds, Rosh broke clear of the forest out into a large clearing with a wide river straight ahead. Beyond that was more forest and beyond that to the right, was the Massassi temple!

Apparently, by sheer luck, he'd been able to stay on track. Rosh immediately made a beeline towards it.

The rustling of bushes from behind told him that the red feline carnivore was after him. Damnit! Why won't it just give up!

His legs churning for all they were worth, Rosh eyed the river with dismay. It was obvious that he couldn't run across it, the drag of the downstream current would slow him down enough for the feline to catch him.

No, the only way to get across was to jump across. The river was pretty wide, but Rosh was positive that he could make it. He had no other choice, if he wanted to live.

That was always a good incentive.

The river was coming closer, but he knew without a doubt that his pursuer was quickly gaining, being on open ground meant that it didn't have to contend with maneuvering around trees and other such obstacles.

With the strength of desperation, Rosh gathered up his flagging energy and focused it into his legs for one last burst of speed.

Five feet. Four feet. Three feet. Two feet. One feet. He was now at the riverbank.

"Ohgoshohgoshohgoshohgoshohgoshthishadbetterfrigginwork!'

With that last thought, Rosh tensed his leg muscles and jumped for all he was worth. For a single moment,  
it was as if time slowed down and he was hanging over the river, inching forward at a snail's pace. From his position, he knew he would make it safely to the other side with inches to spare.

When his left foot finally touched down on the ground,  
time resumed its normal passage. However, before he could even start to be happy about that, the forward momentum from his leap transferred to his landing.

In other words, he was unable to keep his balance upon landing and tripped, finding himself for the third time in one day, face flat on the slightly moist ground.

For a second, Rosh lied still, confused as to what had happened. His adrenaline, which had served him so well in preventing him from becoming catfood, quickly left his body, leaving him feeling weak as a kitten.

He lifted his head and then suddenly, his eyes widened as he abruptly remembered what was chasing him. He quickly rolled over just in time to see the feline-like predator launch itself over the river, just like he'd done.

And unless he did something very soon, said feline-like predator would be landing right on him.

Completely frozen by fear, Rosh did the only thing he could. Reflexively throwing his arms over his face, the young man screamed at the top of his lungs.

"MOOOOMMMMIIIEEEEEEEEEEEE!" 3

Two heart-beats passed.

Nothing happened. There was no impact of an oversized cat on top of him, there was no unbearable pain of his skin being ripped open by razor edged canines, there was no spurting of blood from ravaged blood vessels.

He was still alive! But how?

Rosh cautiously opened his eyes and lowered his arms. He looked around uneasily and immediately shouted out in surprise.

The red cat was still there over him, but something had frozen it in mid-air. For a moment, Rosh thought he was dreaming or hallucinating, but a female voice soon dispelled that theory.

"I'm sorry to interfere with your business, my feline sister, but I'll take over from here. Talna!"

* * *

From the treelines where they'd been watching the amusing chase, Crimson had been tempted to let the predator catch the prey.

But at the last moment, her desire to have a little fun changed her mind; with that decided, she motioned to Talna, who understood what to do.

The three Disciples casually walked out into the open, Talna with her hand outstretched, using the Force to hold the large feline in place.

They stopped at a certain point, Crimson a little ahead of her two subordinates. In an overly dramatic tone, she said "I'm sorry to interfere with your business, my feline sister, but I'll have to take over from here."

She pointed at the forest on the other side and ordered, "Talna!"

Her subordinate nodded, her brow wrinking with the effort, and slowly dropped her live cargo at the designated area.

The red feline landed on her feet, snarled angrily at the three women and for one second was about to attack them. However, her animal instincts, which had kept her alive all these years on Yavin, warned her against that move. These three were definitely more dangerous than she ever could be. Hissing in displeasure, she wheeled around and vanished within the forest.

Rosh let out a breath of pure relief and he remained where he was for a few seconds, letting himself recover from the exhausting run. If he hadn't prepared himself physically for the New Republic Military -- he shook his head; he did not want to go there. It was a good thing that his rescuers had arrived when they did.

When he felt his legs were sturdy enough to support him again, Rosh stood up with some difficulty and faced them. He assumed that they were from the Jedi Academy; Skywalker must've found out about their predicament, somehow. After all, he was a Jedi Master and probably had his ways.

His initial greeting died quickly when he got a good look at them. There were three of them, undisputedly female, and what really took Rosh aback was their body language and their choice of clothing.

His intuition told him in no uncertain terms that the shortest one in the middle was the leader, and she was tense and angry at something, or someone. Check that, not angry, more like ... hostile. Very, very hostile.

The body language of one of the two behind wasn't nearly as tense or hostile as the leader's was, but neither was it encouraging. The tallest one seemed to be neutral, perhaps even a little sympathetic, but that was probably his imagination.

Also, their clothing was not giving him any assurance at all either. In his opinion, those black hooded robes they wore practically screamed out "Danger!" to his intuition. With every inch of their body covered, except for the mouth and chin, Rosh decided that it was quite evident they weren't going for a 'positive' public image.

In appearances alone, they looked very ominous and forbidding to him and a sudden chill ran up his spine.

That said, Rosh didn't think that Luke Skywalker would approve of such attire. He found himself idly wondering how they could stand being almost completely covered like that during such a hot day like now.

Rosh was beginning to have a bad feeling about all this. His throat became suddenly dry, and the relief he'd felt at being rescued winked out and was being replaced with apprehension. Although he knew it would fail, he tried anyway.

"Thanks ladies," he began cautiously. "I would've been catfood if you three hadn't shown up when you did. Say, how did you manage to find me all the way from the Academy?"

His question went unanswered. The one in the middle who seemed to be in charge stepped forward, her mouth turning up into an eager and hungry grin. She unhooked her black and red lightsaber and ignited it.

The resulting snap-hiss made Rosh flinch, which she enjoyed seeing. The bruised half of his face made her snicker derisively, lowering her opinion of him by several depths.

It was at this time that every inch of Rosh's body screamed at him that he was in a lot of trouble. He wasn't an idiot; from the stories he'd heard of the fall of the Empire, these were probably Sith, like what Darth Vader and the Emperor had been.

Taking some steps backward, Rosh pasted a nervous smile on his face and tried to negotiate.

"Okay, let's have everyone calm down and I'm sure we can make a deal. C'mon, whadaya say? I'm not even a trained Jedi yet, meaning I'm no threat to you at all. So how about letting me go, c'mon, please?"

Unfortunately, his pleading failed to result in the desired conclusion. Crimson began advancing on him, matching him step for step, and brought her lightsaber to ready.

Behind her, Narissa seemed on the verge of saying something, but decided against it.

"Typical of a man; not having the courage to die with dignity. I'll be doing Skywalker a favor by helping him weed out pathetic worms just like you! Die, you weak excuse for a male!"

Rosh had a response ready for that.

"Oh, shit."

Crimson dashed forward and she lifted her lightsaber for a slashing maneuver. All of a sudden, in mid-step, the Force alerted her to an incoming threat from across the river.

Stopping in her tracks, she swiveled in the necessary direction and yelled out "Ambush!" while bringing her blade up defensively in an appropriate block.

It was a good thing too, because less than half a heart-beat later, a burst of laser bolts were fired at them from the trees on the other side of the river.

Reacting quickly himself, Rosh took this opportunity to dash into the woods, heading straight for the Massassi Temple. They were distracted, good. Now he had to reach the Temple before they caught up to him.

At their superior's cry, Narissa and Talna activated their lightsabers and prepared to defend themselves. All three ignored Rosh's escape; they could easily catch up to him after they disposed of this newest problem.

Unfortunately, things weren't as easy as they'd assumed.

Crimson easily picked off the laser bolt that blazed towards her face; as did Narissa. However, the last member of their group wasn't quite as successful.

Talna had been a split-second too slow to react. She ALMOST made it as she swung her lightsaber up in a half-circle to deflect the incoming bolt. Despite her attempt, the laser bolt shot past the energy blade, missing by a fourth of an inch, and burnt itself right between her eyes. 4

She fell on her back, convulsed for a bit then became still as she entered death's final embrace.

Crimson's eyes narrowed. Whoever ambushed them, and she was certain it was only one person, was one hell of a shot. All of those laser bolts had been aimed at the exact same spot for all three of them.

And what was more to consider was the speed of which the laser bolts had been fired...no hesitation between each shot. Just zap-zap-zap and that was it.

Knowing instantly that their comrade was dead, Crimson and Narissa didn't even bother to tend to her. They absently realized that Rosh had disappeared, but they didn't worry about that now.

The two of them wisely kept their guard up, not eager to dash into such an obvious trap, preferring to wait for their hidden attacker to show themselves.

"Narissa, go catch that coward who ran away," Crimson ordered. "I'll deal with this one."

"Sure thing Ma'am," her subordinate acknowledged and began to head towards the forest.

Only to be forced to defend herself when the second round of laser beams flashed into existence. This time however, instead of going for the both of them, they were all directed at her.

"You stupid idiot!" her superior roared at her. "Have you forgotten? NEVER turn your back on an enemy!"

"S-sorry Ma'am!" Narissa exclaimed, letting the Force guide her hand and she deflected every beam successfully.

Though she wasn't skilled enough to redirect them straight back at their source, she was capable enough to angle them in a way so they wouldn't burn her foot off or accidentally fly in Crimson's direction.

The young blonde shivered at the thought of what would occur should her superior's wrath, already provoked by her blunder, be incensed further by the latter.

It became obvious that their hidden ambusher was trying to buy their prey additional time. It was also clear to Crimson that he or she would keep firing at Narissa, further stopping her from chasing the man, which led to said man getting farther and farther away with each breath.

Of course, that simply wouldn't do at all.

Busily defending herself, Narissa was surprised when her leader's blade shot out and deflected one, then two laser bolts.

"Ma'am?" she asked uncertainly.

"Go," Crimson stated, an angry undertone evident as she stepped in front of her. "I'll cover you."

"Thanks a lot, Ma'am! Be right back in a minute!" Narissa caroled happily and sped into the forest.

The instant her subordinate vanished into the trees, the barrage stopped. Crimson smirked; she'd expected that to happen.

"Come on out and face me, if you have the guts for it, you ambushing, cowardly piece of filth!"

She'd expected another fruitless barrage of lasers; she'd expected the ambusher to run away. What she didn't expect was the person to actually meet her challenge.

Out of the woods, as if he didn't have a care in the world, calmly strolled Ranma Korr, weaponless except for his lightsaber held in his hand.

Stopping a few feet from the riverbank, he regarded the her with a measured look, as if mentally calculating her threat potential.

"Ambushing?" he asked in a mildly interested way. "A curious description, coming from someone who was definitely involved in a certain uncalled for, sudden attack on a certain shuttlecraft backaways."

"Pheh," snorted Crimson. "I'll admit that you got guts to blame that on me. Not that it matters since I'm wasn't the one who did it."

It was true; it had been Tavion who had blasted the shuttlecraft's engines with the Scepter of Ragnos.

"And yet, you did nothing to stop it and are in league with whoever WAS responsible. That makes you," he pointed at her, "guilty by association."

Her patience finished, Crimson brandished her weapon and shouted at him, "Enough talking! You ambushed us and killed one of my own, you bastard! I'm soo going to enjoy this..."

With that, she brought up her lightsaber to the ready and began walking towards the river, never taking her eyes off him.

With an eager gleam of anticipation forming in her eyes, she found herself growing excited.

The short lived mystery had been solved already; with the lightsaber as proof, obviously he was a Jedi. How else could the accuracy of his blaster shots could be explained? 5

This would be her first battle with a Jedi; hopefully he would provide her with a good fight. That Twi-lek slut was good, but she wasn't yet her equal in pure lightsaber combat. She was almost there however, and the 'practice' battles between the two of them weren't always one-sided.

Crimson entertained the faint hope that this man would prove to be as good, but she doubted it.

By reflex, Crimson probed him with her Force senses and became greatly puzzled, though her face didn't show it. Unless she was mistaken or unless he was trying to deceive her into underestimating him, this was the same guy she sensed earlier, the one with hardly any Force potential.

Just what kind of stupid trick he was trying to pull?

She spat in anger. Just like a man to trick a woman in order to make her misjudge him, so he could stab her in the back when she wasn't paying attention. Trick or not, he was going to die today at her hands!

And like she'd said, there was the matter of vengeance.

Talna had been a decent subordinate and, barring any new female initiates, it would be extremely difficult to replace. At least her death would help Crimson by focusing her thoughts of revenge. She flipped off the hood, letting her face catch the afternoon sunlight.

Black hair with blue highlights that reached the middle of her back was securely tied back in a tight, double knot. Wrathful brown pupils regarded her enemy with scorn. A furious scowl marred what was otherwise an attractive face.

"Whoever you are, you wouldn't believe how big a mistake you've just made. Your life, as of now, is forfeit, you stupid, suicidal MAN! Please, do me a favor and try to put up at least a little bit of resistance."

Her face emphasized her promise by twisting into a decidedly evil and menacing expression which had put fear into the hearts of many men.

It was completely wasted on Ranma, who didn't acknowledge it one bit. He shrugged, his posture giving off vibes of indifference, and ignited his lightsaber.

The chips of ice that vaguely resembled his eyes met her burning glare directly, showing not an inch of fear.

Holding the humming light-green energy blade a few inches away from his face, Ranma gave Crimson her answer.

"We'll see."

End Chapter 2

Began May 26, 2006  
Finished June 16, 2006  
Revised June 22, 2006  
Further revised July 02, 2006

Author's Notes:

Revised version 1.00  
Corrected the minor errors pointed out/discussed by Sebastian Palm and David Johnston. Thanks guys! Rewrote some paragraphs and added a one or two new ones.

Revised version 1.01  
Tried hard to follow as much of Elsa's advice as possible. Fewer frequent scene breaks and decreased the number of ellipses (I never noticed how much I used them). The pacing, however, is going to stay pretty much the same. And for the humor, well, unless I think up some better ideas (and implement them in a yet another future revision), it'll go the same way.

Expanded on a few scenes and changed some minor details to make this chapter connect more smoothly with the next.

1 Yes, I'm evil. (chuckles)

2 Borrowed this line from ID4

3 If you haven't noticed already, Rosh is the designated comic-relief...well, until Ranma thaws out later in the story, though.

4 I figured if Jango Fett could catch a fully trained Jedi Knight (Coleman Trebor) by surprise and eventually get through his defenses (Attack of the Clones)...

5 Crimson hasn't met Dash Rendar (Shadows of the Empire) or Wes Janson of Rogue/Wraith Squadron, two of the best gun-men in the Star Wars universe


	4. Chapter 3

Usual disclaimer: See earlier chapters. 

A Star Wars-Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy/Ranma 1/2 Crossover  
The Jedi of Chaos

Chapter 3 (1st draft)

This was turning out to be one of the most easiest assignments Allura ever had. In the beginning, she'd thought it'd be much more difficult to infiltrate the Jedi Academy.

Now she could barely keep from derisively laughing out loud as she casually walked down the hall. Currently she was on the second floor of the Academy, and according to Brakiss's information, it was at the other side of the building.

In fact, the only difficulty so far was to avoid the oblivious Jedi students. With most of them off training, studying, eating or doing whatever they usually did, that was accomplished without much trouble. Ironically, it was her belief that the infiltration would've been nearly impossible had she attempted it during the night, when everyone congregated in the Academy. In the daytime, it was almost deserted. But on the side of the caution, Allura had managed to steal a Jedi robe from one of the instructor's rooms and had worn it over her very distinctive black cloak.

Also, it had helped that the students were from different planets and races, so her Twi-lek features and red skin only rated a passing look. The relaxed expression she'd fixed on her face also helped in that regard.

Next time, she swore to be assigned to a mission that would provide a bit more ... action. Though she wasn't the combat addicted freak that Crimson was, she did enjoy the thrill of a good fight as it helped break the everyday boredom of life.

She snorted in contempt of her rival. Crimson, now that was truely one of the stupidest names Allura had ever heard. Her hair wasn't the color and neither were her eyes. Allura had learned her real name after eavesdropping on a meeting Tavion and the human girl had.

In the Disciples of Ragnos, it was a well known fact that many of them, for their own personal reasons, had changed their names. Allura had joined before her rival had, but by the time Tendou had officially taken her place as one of Tavion's two disciples, a running joke had sprung up about there being two Crimsons for one job. She hated that pathetic excuse of witticism and had no qualms about letting her displeasure be known, via a Force lightning attack.

Ah, there, she'd finally reached Skywalker's room. Glancing around to make sure there were no one around, she walked in and pulled out a data pad from beneath her cloak.

She was just about to begin her search for Skywalker's diary when she saw that it wasn't even necessary. Apparently, Skywalker trusted his students enough to leave his diary on top of his desk.

Shaking her head in disbelief, Allura reached out and connected the pad to the diary with a data cable. This would only take a few minutes at the most.

* * *

"We'll see."

When Rosh had so foolishly run off, Ranma hadn't even bothered to start looking for him. Although he had a low opinion of the other boy's intelligence, the young Korr knew that Penin would decide to head towards the Massassi temple because it was the only thing he could do. Penin had gotten such a headstart that even tree-hopping hadn't enabled Ranma to catch up to him. And when he finally did, he'd almost been too late.

Witnessing the appearance of the three mysterious women, Ranma had been immediately suspicious of them. This had only been confirmed when their apparent leader had activated her lightsaber. Ranma had quickly hypothesized that she and her crew had something to do with the shuttlecraft's ambush. At that instant, he'd made a tactical decision.

Penin was unarmed, a mistake of his that Ranma had readily admitted, and still had the beacon. Their job was still not yet done, and so with crystal clarity, Ranma knew that he had to distract and hold the trio's attention until Rosh could do his part. He hadn't expected to get one of them with his blaster shots, which had been a pleasant surprise. It had raised his estimates of his survival by twenty percent.

Judging by the speed of which the remaining two had reacted and deflected his blaster's shots, he'd been certain that he couldn't stop the taller woman from pursuing Penin. If he'd done so, he would have earned a lightsaber in the back from the leader for his effort. Penin had a headstart, true, but from Sensei Galdern's lessons about the Force, Ranma assumed that the subordinate would use the Force to increase her running speed.

If that were true, then Penin was in a lot of trouble.

However, Ranma couldn't help him at the moment because, quite coincidentally, he found himself in some trouble of his own. It had seemed that his flippant response had struck a VERY responsive chord as he was extremely hard pressed to defend himself.

For her part, Crimson's eyes flared up in anger at her opponent's casual attitude and suddenly broke into a dash. The river proved to be an insignificant obstacle; a single Force-enhanced flip was all it took to get over it. The instant she hit the other side, she charged at him, determined to make him regret he'd ever underestimated her.

The brilliance of her lightsaber's blade, deliberately chosen for her namesake, became a blur of red as she slashed, stealing the offensive right away. Enraged by the man's ambush on her and the death of Talna, she attacked relentlessly but not recklessly. She held back at first, wanting to see how much skill he had.

It came as a bit of surprise when all her of strikes were blocked or parried. Obviously he was no mere new recruit, he had to have some kind of training before. But then, she had somewhat expected it; after all, he'd chosen to walk out from his ambush spot and challenge her to a lightsaber fight. That had suggested to her that he had to know some moves; just how much was the question.

However, against an opponent of her caliber, 'some' didn't cut it. Not even close.

She was mildly interested in seeing how long he could stay alive when she upped the ante.

Anger, that familiar friend, flooded anew through her veins anew and fueling the Dark Side within her. Her initial tempo, in concert with her building battle lust, began to gradually speed up.

Her blood began pounding in her ears; her entire being screamed at her to kill the man in front of her. Her eyes thinned, her mouth curled hatefully, and her battle rage kept on pumping. An image of her worthless, deadbeat father superimposed over her opponent, only to be faded out eventually, just to be replaced with the most hated figure from her past, the bastardized rich snob who had---

A dark red haze appeared in her vision, absorbing everything else except for her target. He was a demon from the pits of hell that just wouldn't stay dead, despite her vengeance years ago. Solely focusing on him, she let years of hate, rage, and anger explode from within.

She slashed left to right, descending, and then right to left in a reversal, nearly catching him by surprise. It was obvious from his slightly hesitant movements that the pathetic wretch lacked actual combat experience with a lightsaber. Either that, or he hadn't faced an opponent like her before. Snorting in open contempt, Crimson slashed down, to be predictably blocked. Disengaging, she struck down again and again, willingingly, challengingly slamming her blade against his.

He took a step back, then two, retreating under her onslaught. Well, well, he did have half a brain after all.

Pushing her advantage, the Disciple of Ragnos came at him in a rush, all the while directing the Force to empower her upper body's physical strength. When it had reached a certain level, Crimson changed her attack stance to the one that fit her like a glove; the one that Tavion had said that takes great advantage of strong emotions.

She began attacking, making use of tight, forceful sweeps, angled high, low, and in the middle. Her tempo was now increased; three attacks where there had been two and her recovery time was lessened by half a second. Her energy blade, a perfect match for her motivation, blurred in front of her as she easily knocked aside a pathetic attempt at a counterattack and quickly followed up with a low cut.

The increased physical force behind her strikes began to have an effect as the Jedi was clearly finding it more difficult to solidly block her attacks as they were beginning to force him back. He began to give ground quicker.

The fact that her opponent was still alive concerned Crimson very little. All she had to do was to knock his weapon out of line in order to clear some space for a finishing technique. She was confiden that it would happen, sooner or later.

She idly speculated how long would it take before his arms would tire and become numb so she could finally cut him down like the dog that he was.

* * *

In Ranma's opinion, the only reason why he wasn't dead yet was because her skill in lightsaber combat wasn't that extensive, though she possessed more experience than him. He'd seen evidence of that in the way she held her lightsaber and her somewhat rough stances. She wasn't one with her weapon, at least not yet. In his personal opinion, she had a long way to go before she reached the status of a Master of someone like Sensei Galdern.

If this was a duel of skill vs skill alone, he would've eventually won, after a dangerously prolonged fight. Although the training under Sensei Galdern had included instructions in extensive lightsaber dueling, the fact was that it was flat out impossibe to practice with lightsabers against a spectral presence in the Force, so the best that Ranma had been able to do was memorize the stances and techniques.

In all consideration, this duel was Ranma's first practical use of his lightsaber training. As it was, if it weren't for his immensely high learning curve and pre-Galdern training with vibroblades and other such weapons, he would've been dead five seconds into the fight. Currently, he was holding his own, yet he knew he couldn't maintain a successful defense forever. The beginning of the duel was spent testing each other, getting a feel for the other's skill. Now as the situation stood, Ranma found himself at a severe disadvantage. Thanks to the 'Soul of Ice', his mental shield was up and dutifully keeping him from attempting to use his abnormal Force energy. Added to that was the fact of the real, potential harm to himself if he dissolved said mental shield; in all likelihood ending in his body exploding from the sheer, chaotic, uncontrollable power being released.

This girl, on the other hand, seemed to be getting faster and the power behind her blows were increasing steadily. Although he couldn't feel it the way Sensei Galdern would've been able to, it didn't take long for him to figure out that she was drawing on the Force to augment her base physical ability.

Genma be damned! If it weren't for him...

Ranma shook his head while barely deflecting aside a high slash, than parried a low thrust. No time to think about the past now. He refocused his attention on her; analyzing every shift in her stance, every attack she threw at him and commiting them to memory and adding to his own style as he saw fit. He calculated unless he changed the course of the duel, in the next two minutes her speed would be such that it would become extremely difficult for his reactions to keep up, thereby enlarging his margin for error considerably.

As it was, he was entirely on the defensive, his arms and shoulders were beginning to hurt from the sheer physical shock of clashing against her increased strength. However, despite his handicap and his disadvantages, his sharp, tactical mind had already found out a weakness in her style. She, whatever her name was, was falling into a pattern that was becoming more predictable as the fight went on. Apparently, she was becoming too overconfident from keeping him on the defensive, and was becoming sloppy, leaving small, yet growing exploitable holes in her stance.

The reason why he hadn't taken advantage of those holes yet because simply, she was just too damn fast, and getting faster as they fought. He wasn't able to effectively counterattack without weakening his guard, which was definitely not an option. At this rate, Ranma wasn't able to see a path to victory because her speed was a major roadblock in his way.

However, there was something he could do, yet at such a great risk that he'd purposely held it back, counting it as a last resort.

But now it seemed that he had no choice now, despite that using it would possibly weaken his mental shields enough to...

Ranma shook that though off, not wanting to dwell upon that. It was his best shot at winning this fight, though he might die from using it. How ironic; his best hope was also his harbinger of doom.

No time to think about that now. He had to do it while he was still alive.

Ranma's eyes narrowed, and backpedaled faster, widening the distance between the two of them. Decision made, he began to concentrate on calling up his ki, as taught to him by one of his former instructors six years ago...

* * *

Rosh Penin had always wanted to be chased around by attractive women, but this was getting ridiculous.

It seemed that he was running for his life the entire day, and it was becoming rather annoying. Once more, he cursed Ranma Korr for not lending him a weapon.

He was positively certain that those lightsaber wielding evil-Jedi types were on his tail. After seeing up close and personal how fast they could move, he was pushing himself beyond his limits. Thanks to whoever had fired upon them, he had been given a couple of seconds headstart and he took full advantage of that.

At least the Massassi Temple was visible through the cracks in the trees; he refused to think of what would happen should he had been forced to climb trees to recheck his course.

It took some doing, but he restrained himself from running all out. It would be stupid of him to do that, then run out of breath, just to be cut down from behind as he tried to get his wind back.

In Rosh's person opinion, that was definitely a very BAD THING.

So he found himself now running at a pace more than a jog, but a little less than an all-out dash. He was making good progress as the Massassi Temple was slowly growing larger, and was not sparing any attempt at stealth. That would have only slowed him down; speed was the key here, which he was practicing with an almost religious zeal.

Several times, he risked quick glances behind him but failed to catch a glimpse of his pursuers.

The young Penin didn't know how lucky he was. In another reality, he and another potential Jedi trainee by the unlikely name of Jaden, in order to reach the Massassi Temple, would have to go through a couple of stormtroopers and one Disciple of Ragnos. In this life, however, Rosh approached the Temple from another direction and thus avoided them by sheer luck.

Then again, he had no weapons and was being chased by lightsaber wielding women. Maybe lucky wasn't the term...

Rosh broke through the bush and circled around a wide tree, panting and sweating. However, what he saw made his discomfort all the worthwhile. He was standing at the top of a small vale, and right across from him stood the Massassi Temple!

Sighing with relief, he looked down, noting that it was downhill all the way to the base of the Temple, about a hundred feet in distance. When he reached the bottom, he would have to climbing up the Temple steps until he reached a spot right above the treeline.

He was about to begin descending when he heard something from behind that nearly made him soil his pants.

Snap-hiss

* * *

Crimson sensed that victory was just within reach. She was being saturated with the Dark Side and her speed was still growing. Right now, she was half again faster than she was normally, without being Force enchanced while her strength had also been increased, though not as much as her speed. That was all right with her; at the beginning of her training, she'd wanted to focus almost purely on combat. When informed of her decision, Mistress Tavion had accepted, with a condition that Crimson would concentrate mostly on speed, along with a smaller focus on strength.

And she still had more to go until finally hitting her limit. If she chose to go beyond that, she risked causing her body irreparable harm.

Not that she would need to go that far of course.

She had no idea how this so-called Jedi was able to defend himself so well without using the Force, but she was certain that it couldn't last. With the Dark Side giving her strength, she wouldn't tire for a long time and her speed and strength would just continue to grow. It was only a matter of minutes.

This Jedi had provided her with a little amusement, but time was growing short and she really had other things to do. And it really was pathetic; he could have used more training. Ever since the start of the fight, it had been made completely obvious to her that the fool wasn't even using the Force to aid him in the fight. Like when she'd first sensed him with his companion, it looked like his Force potential really was that small.

Truely, it was one of the most pathetic things Crimson had ever seen.

On the otherhand, the whole affair was getting tiresome. She had her fill already, and now, this little comedy needed to come to an end. However, it seemed that he'd somehow sensed it and was rapidly backing away from her. As if that would save him; she would easily match his speed by directing the Force to her legs and did so.

Grinning ferally, Crimson charged after him, attacking the moment she got within range. Aiming at his right shoulder, she slashed down hard.

Out of nowhere, with a speed faster than what he'd shown before, his lightsaber came dancing in at her left, smashing into her blade with unexpected strength and forcing it further to her right than she wanted. So unprepared was she for that attack, so surprised was she that her mental processes stalled for a moment. Tavion's student blinked once and had but one thought.

'What?'

Than her eyes widened in surprise and panic as she suddenly realized the full ramifications of what had just happened. With her lightsaber out of line, she was completely open! With that, it finally occured to her that maybe she should bring her lightsaber back where she could appropriately block or parry the next attack that was coming. On that count, she was just a tad bit too late.

Feeling his ki burn through him and clenching his teeth, Ranma kicked out at her open front, striking her full in the stomach. He could've easily thrust his lightsaber into her heart, but there were questions he wanted to ask of her. Disabling her would just have to do.

With the wind suddenly knocked out of her, she hunched over a little, one hand reflexively going to her stomach and the other maintaining a loose hold on her weapon. However, she was still able to see her opponent's cold face as he lifted up his light-green energy blade and cleanly slashed off her hand just after the elbow.

"Cho-mai," whispered Ranma as he brought himself to a basic neutral stance. (1)

A howl of sheer agony erupted from her lips as the pain overwhelmed her. Dropping to her knees and clutching her wrist tightly, as if to squeeze out the hot fire playing on her nerves. Her eyes dropped on the person responsible, the damned Jedi, hating him even more. Amidst the pain, it was suddenly clear to her that he had purposely held back his Force abilities in order for her to underestimate him. And when she got overconfident, he took advantage of that and tricked her! Blast him!

"Ya-ya-ya babab! Ollkalya! Ollkalya! Ollkalya! (2)" she mumbled through her broken jaw, trying to fight past the pain. In her current state, she missed the fact that the despisable man was glowing faintly with a white-bluish aura.

For his part, Ranma was thankful that he managed to end the fight without having to rely on the prolonged use of his ki. Already he could feel the strain on his mental shield; it was still holding but it was also growing more difficult to do so. If he had to keep using his ki for several more seconds, the toll it would have on his ability to maintain the shield would have been more than he could handle. Taking a deep breath, the ponytailed man went through the necessary steps to end the use of his ki and the aura around him slowly faded away.

Then he noticed that she was still yelling and making dire threats. In his opinion, a silent, unconscious enemy was more preferable to a conscious, boisterous one. With that in mind, he calmly walked over to her, made a tight fist, drew it back and solidly punched the side of her jaw that wasn't broken.

"Quiet!" he demanded as she slumped to the ground unconscious. A second later, Ranma himself fell to the ground on his knees.

Breathing heavily, his muscles were on fire from the extremely strenuous fight and his mind wasn't doing too good either. Use of his ki had forced him to stretch to the very limits of his mental shield and when that happened, it felt as if a razor sharp blade was constantly stabbing in and out of his brain. He only hoped that there wasn't any permanent harm done; brain damage was no laughing matter after all.

As he rested, Ranma looked at his opponent impassively, thinking of what to do. He suddenly realized that he didn't even know her name, not that it was that important. In his opinion, perserving his life had a much higher priority than that.

Originally he had wanted to interrogate her but being unconscious and having a broken jaw (not his greatest idea, he admitted silently) clearly put a damper on that plan. Then, should he bring her along as a prisoner?

After a moment's consideration, he decided against that; she would just slow him down and cost him precious time. All right, he would just have to leave her here in order to check on Penin and see what his condition was; if the other boy was dead, then that would be unfortunate. In any case, Ranma was hoping that the beacon was still in one piece.

Their job was not yet finished, after all.

But before he left, there was one thing he had to do. After he felt he had enough rest, Ranma quickly retrieved his blaster from where he'd left it, as well as his opponent's weapon (his eyes betraying the slightest grimace as he slid it out of the detached hand), and then jumped over the river, throwing the black and red lightsaber high over his shoulder while doing so.

Landing on the other side in perfect balance, he turned, quickly drew his gun and blew apart the dead girl's lightsaber (which had fallen near her), and then, in a display of superior hand-eye coordination and accuracy, tracked and blasted the other one out of the air.

Nodding in satisfaction, Ranma started walking into the forest. It was possible that those two had allies elsewhere on Yavin. No sense leaving behind weapons for them to salvage.

It was right then a group of people emerged from the forest treeline, way down the river. Thanks to his near perfect vision, although he saw that some of them did have lightsabers, not for a moment did he think that they were from the Jedi Academy. The four stormtroopers were a pretty big hint in that regard. With all that in mind, he did the only thing he could do.

Ranma turned back towards the treeline and quickly ran for it.

* * *

"Well, well, little rabbit. I've finally caught up to you," Narissa remarked in a sultry tone that sounded suitable for a holonet model. "You led me on quite the chase, not bad, but everything has to come to an end."

Despite his fear, Rosh suddenly found himself checking her out. Very attractive, mid-twenties, great figure, beautiful eyes, the blonde hair would've looked better if it were longer, and he was dead certain that if she smiled, his heart would probably stop. Her chest size was also quite impressive, especially for someone with such a slender figure.

Then he slapped himself on the forehead. 'Idiot! What the hell am I doing? She's going to kill you unless you do something!'

Unfortunately for him, he couldn't think of anything that could be done. He couldn't go forward or to either side, and behind him was all downhill, not exactly the most steady of places to be running, now was it?

What the hell was he going to do?

Narissa lifted her saber up in an aggressive forward stance, holding it above her head with the blade facing behind her. "Too bad, you are kinda cute. Pity we're on different sides and I've got my orders, anyway, so I'll make this quick." That said, she charged at him.

Rosh had always heard about that when people thought they were going to die, their lives would flash in front of their eyes. Well, strangely, he kind of felt cheated because it sure wasn't happening to him. What was happening to him that he was certain of was that he was very afraid for his life, angry that he was going to die, and incredibly, hating a certain someone for once again getting him involved in such a situation.

When he saw Narissa coming straight at him, his eyes widened in panic. Stumbling back against the wide tree, he reflexively threw his hands up protectively before his face, much like what he'd done with the wildcat. Two things were rampaging through his mind; how much he wanted he wanted to live and how much he wished that she would just...JUST go away and leave him ALONE!

She was just three feet away from him when IT happened.

Rosh felt an invisible wave of ... something suddenly burst out of his hands and picked her up as if she were nothing and literally threw her away. She yelped in surprise before vanishing in the forest's shadows. Jaw slack with amazement, Rosh heard the passage of her body as she swept pass bushes, snapped branches and whatnot before eventually fading from sight.

"Holy rancor droppings, Penin! W-Was that the Force I just used?" Rosh asked out loud, completely stunned by what he'd just done and looking at his hands as if he'd never seen them before. Then he blinked his eyes, suddenly feeling drained and utterly exhausted. His legs wouldn't support him and he slowly slid off the tree which had supported him earlier.

Rosh had forgotten one small, little detail. The tree was right at the edge of the slope; thus, when he finished sliding off the tree, there was absolutely nothing to keep him from accidentally somersaulting backwards ass over teakettle and happily rolling down said slope.

"Oooof, oohhhh, accckkk!"

There was yet another thing he'd forgotten. Said slope wasn't exactly only packed dirt and grass; it also contained average-sized rocks and stones.

Many average-sized rocks and stones.

"OWWW! OUCHHH! AAAAARRRGGHHH!"

And of course, all the while Rosh was thinking of just how much all of this was Ranma Korr's fault.

It was a long, hard, PAINFUL trip downhill.

Unknown to the hapless Rosh, he wasn't the only one who was was letting their agony be known to the world.

Moaning at the pain she was feeling, Narissa Kaltic groaned as she slowly regained consciousness. Although she wasn't aware of it, she was now thirteen meters away from where she'd been before being Force-pushed. How that idiot managed to pull it off was something she had trouble understanding.

Was it was an accident?

"Damn, he didn't have to hit me so hard," she cursed, blinking her eyes. From what she could tell, she was still in one piece. Miraculously, she didn't collide with a tree and get impaled by a broken branch, two of her worst fears during her unintended flight.

"I must find him," she stated in grim determination and tried to sit up. However, her body decided that it had other ideas and made her black out again.

* * *

For the most part, Tavion Axmis (3), human leader of the Disciples of Ragnos, was having a good day. So far, the mission was turning out to be a success. Ten minutes ago, she'd just finished draining the Dark Side Force energy from the Massassi Temple using the Sceptre of Ragnos. She smirked; stealing it from that old, dead trader who dealt in ancient items was the best idea she had in years.

Also, Allura had sent her a heavily coded signal consisting of two beeps on a certain frequency that had informed Tavion she had successfully completed her part in the mission.

The Massassi Temple had possessed a great deal of Dark Side energy. Tavion nearly shivered in delight at how many cultists (a.k.a cannon fodder) she would be able to empower with the stolen energy. Hopefully, Skywalker's diary would be able to provide more places similarly saturated so their numbers would continue to grow and she would be able to execute her ultimate plan.

Suppressing an urge to start laughing out loud maniacally, Tavion settled for a grin of sheer greed. To imagine, all that power would be hers in the near future, she could barely wait!

Her entourage broke free of the forest and unfortunately that was when her good mood took a severe nosedive.

She caught sight of a black-haired, ponytailed man who was downstream from her group. However, before she could say anything, he dashed into the forest they'd just exited like a coward. Then again, her group did outnumber and outgun him, so she couldn't blame him for retreating.

It was right then that her gaze fell upon the two motionless bodies of Crimson and Talna, and her anger spiked, along with a huge amount of disappointment and irritation. Now she knew why he'd suddenly made himself scarce; he was the one responsible!

There was no sign of Narissa, and frankly at the moment, she couldn't bring herself to care about that. She was too busy dealing with the surprising and unsettling fact that one, untrained Jedi initiate managed to defeat two of hers, and one being a prime student!

Tavion had expected Crimson and her subordinates to be more than capable of wiping out a bunch of Jedi initiates. However, it seemed that reality proved her wrong. It was evident that Allura's rival wasn't as ready as she thought she'd been. Allura herself would probably be ecstatic with the news that Crimson had utterly failed. Though the infiltration of the Academy was the main priority, Tavion had thought that in the process of doing so, why not kill two birds with one stone and weaken Skywalker's little group?

It had been a good idea, in theory. In execution, well, it had turned out to be otherwise. Damn that Crimson. It was enough to make Tavion wonder why she even bothered putting all those five years of effort into training the younger woman. All that, just so she could lose to an untrained little snit? Pathetic, extremely pathetic.

Shaking her head, Tavion was tempted to leave her fallen student behind, but changed her mind. She needed a convenient target to take out her anger on and Crimson had just appointed herself as such.

Quickly directing her men to pick up the unconscious Crimson and her detached hand, Tavion proceeded to lead the way to the rendezvous point. She had already felt for Narissa's Force signature, and it looked like she was unconscious in the forest behind them. Well, they had no time to waste and retrieve her; Tavion could feel that Skywalker and his Academy brats were nearing the area. It was time for them to retreat without anymore interruptions.

Eighty-eight, eighty-nine, ninety, ninety-one... there, made it!

Summong what little strength he had left in his battered and bloody body, Rosh smirked victoriously as he held the beacon aloft. Finally, after all the pain and agony, he'd finished the mission!

Punching the necessary keys to activate the beacon, the young Penin sat down and looked around. He was sitting on the sixty-second step on the Massassi Temple, at a height which was a good twenty feet above the tallest tree. Surprisingly, after finally reaching level ground, except for his nose nothing was broken, though he was a walking bruise and pain tore at him with every single movement he made.

Rosh wearily looked at the amount of steps he would have to walk back on the way down and was promptly discouraged. He decided that he would lay down and rest for several minutes first. Good thing that these steps were fairly wide, just enough to accomodate his admittedly thin frame.

In a few seconds, he was snoozing blissfully, the beacon on the step above him and singing out its electronic S.O.S.

It was this way that Kyle Katarn found him. (4)

"Poor kid," he muttered sympathetically as he noted the vast number of bruises on him. "What sort of brute would do this to someone unarmed?"

With no answers forthcoming, Kyle gently picked him up in his arms and began walking down the steps.

"Luke Skywalker, I presume?"

"That's me. And you are...Ranma Korr?"

The tow-headed Jedi Master gave the younger man in front of him a once over. Two inches shorter than him, cleanly cut raven black hair tied back in a small ponytail, steel gray-blue eyes, slightly worn travel garments... Yes, although the oldish looking lightsaber was new, his description fit that of his file. This was Ranma Korr, the one Mara Jade had said possessed a 'peculiar problem' with his Force energy. (5)

Using the Force, Luke had managed to pinpoint the exact location of the shuttlecraft and had immediately dispatched himself, Kyle, two of the three doctors currently assigned to the Academy, and instructors and senior students, four each. Using one of the Academy's short-range transport craft, they had arrived at the scene quickly, where they had been greeted by a chatty Aserna and an extremely relieved group of injured new arrivals. The Rodian, with Aserna's help, told them everything; the belief that someone had fired on the shuttlecraft, the crashlanding, Ranma and Rosh deciding to go out to the Massassi Temple.

It was then that Luke and Kyle had both felt several Dark Side presences leaving the planet. Greatly concerned about the well being of Korr and Penin, they decided to leave immediately. After quickly bidding the doctors to go with the rest of the new students, Luke and company used the Force to enhance their running speed and made for the Temple.

Along the way, they had come upon the dead body of a suspiciously dressed woman and the blasted remains of a lightsaber. Quickly deciding that they would go back there later, the Academy group leapt over the river and finally arrived at their destination.

To their surprise, they had met Ranma Korr, along with an unfamiliar, unconscious woman lying at his feet. He was about to go check on Rosh when they'd caught up with him. Luke kept him from going, however, and asked Kyle to go instead. Ranma had merely shrugged and remained where he was.

Then the Q&A session began.

"Ranma, if you don't mind, can you please tell what happened with you and Rosh Penin ever since you left the shuttlecraft."

While Ranma was giving a summary of what he and Rosh had just been through, one of the Academy's instructors walked up to them.

"Kam," Luke greeted the older man. Ranma cut short his tale and looked at the new arrival with a neutral gaze.

Kam Solusar (6), a hardened, bitter man who was the Academy's most experienced teacher, glanced curiously at Ranma and then turned his attention to Luke.

"Master Skywalker, you were correct. Those Dark-Siders who left the planet earlier did indeed pass through this area earlier. There are traces of several individuals, possibly five or six." He grimaced, then continued, "I can almost smell the remnants their Dark Side stench."

"Same here," Luke said. "I've managed to track their movements; three of them went up there." He gestured near the top of the Massassi Temple.

Kam blinked in confusion. "But isn't that where we began picked up the distress beacon shortly before we picked up the group in the wreck back there?"

The younger man nodded. "Yes, that's correct. I've already sent Kyle up there to see what he could discover. He should be back soon. I just wish that we could have caught those Dark Side users, whoever they were, before they left the planet. Well, it's all right; we had to take care of our wounded new students first."

"Yes, though I have a suspicion that whatever mischief they were up to, it was nothing good."

Luke agreed with him. "I've got a bad feeling about what happened here." Sensing a presence, he looked up at the familiar figure carefully walking down the steps with a someone in his arms. Narrowing his eyes, Luke reached out with the Force to ascertain that Kyle's burden was alive and only unconscious.

Motioning for Kam to follow him, the Jedi Master went to meet Kyle and to hear what he had to tell them. Not caring whether he was allowed to or not, Ranma followed behind them.

He got there just in time to hear Luke say, "My god, what kind of monster would torture someone like this?"

"My thoughts exactly," Kyle said grimly.

Ranma looked over Luke's shoulder. "Impressive, he's still alive. I half expected him to be dead."

The other three men shot startled glances at the young Korr, not amused at all by his matter of fact tone.

Luke turned to confront him. "Mr. Korr, what do you mean by that?"

Ranma shrugged and jabbed a thumb over his own shoulder at the unconscious woman. "She'd been ordered by her leader to get him. Penin was unarmed and she had a lightsaber; him dying was the most likely scenario I could think of."

His eyes narrowing, Luke had already noticed that Ranma had both a blaster and his lightsaber. "And why was Rosh unarmed? You got two weapons there; you could have given him the blaster so he could protect himself." Already, the Jedi Master was beginning to form a bad impression of him.

If Ranma was bothered by Luke's sharpening tone, he failed to acknowledge it. His reply was interrupted by Katarn.

"I'm sure this discussion can wait. We still need to call the transport and get Rosh some medical attention. Luke?"

Luke met Kyle's eyes and nodded, though by the way his mouth thinned, it was obvious that he wanted to continue said discussion. However, he saw the wisdom in Kyle's suggestion and decided to follow it.

"Ranma, we'll continue this later back at the Academy," he told the ponytailed man firmly. Kyle, his burden, and Kam had already started walking towards the unconscious woman.

Ranma casually nodded and silently followed him.

With a low grunt, Kyle carefully laid down Rosh several feet away from the blonde. "I'm getting too old to play packhorse," he commented wryly.

Luke's sense of humor asserted itself, replacing the negative thoughts he'd had of Ranma. "No one's fault but your own, Kyle. You did volunteer to go all the way up there."

Kam snorted in amusement and gestured towards the blonde. "Anyone have an idea who she is?"

Ranma replied, "I don't know what her name is, or where she came from, or why she's doing here. All I know is that from what I've seen from her group, she's been trained with a lightsaber and probably in the Force, as well."

"Group?" asked all three older men at once with their eyebrows raised.

"Yeah, group. The first of them I saw was back at the river. There were three of them, all women armed with lightsabers and wearing the same kind of clothing. The angry girl, whom I telling you about earlier, was about to make Penin history when I shot at them with my blaster. I managed to catch them by surprise and eliminate one of the underlings. Their leader ordered this blonde here to chase after Penin and engaged me in a lightsaber fight."

"Shortly after I disarmed her, another group appeared upstream consisting of storm troopers and some people who I believe were Dark Jedi of sorts, according to their lightsabers. There was also a human woman with them and I also believe that she was in charge of everyone. I knew I couldn't fight them all so I chose to retreat into the forest. After a few minutes, I came upon her lying unconscious and decided to bring her along for questioning. After destroying her lightsaber of course."

"Sensible of you," Kam commented finally.

Ranma shrugged. "I know what my current limits are, and winning against a group of Dark Jedi with storm troopers for support are definitely beyond those."

"So you've had some lightsaber training prior to coming here? Are you sure they were storm troopers?" Luke asked in rapid succession.

Solusar decided to add his own contribution. "Their ultimate leader, what did she look like?"

Had not the Soul of Ice been active, Ranma would've rolled his eyes in disgust at the Jedi Master's question. As it was, he decided to ignore the first part, at least for now, and merely gave further clarification on the second.

"They were four of them, all dressed up in white, shiny field armor and carrying standard Empire-issue blaster rifles. You will understand that since I was rather reluctant to get within accurate range, I did not have the opportunity to ask them in order to affirm my observations."

Though the answer was delivered in a clear, concise and flat manner, Luke couldn't help but be suspicious that the younger man was being subtlely sarcastic. He also noticed that Ranma didn't answer the first part of his question, but he put it aside for later.

Feeling that he'd satisfied Luke's questions, Ranma answered Kyle's. "She was above average height, I'd say. Very well conditioned, short, brown hair, and she had some wierd, colored tattoos on her face. She was armed with a lightsaber, though it was at her belt, and in her hands she held some sort of long, odd-looking scepter."

Kyle's eyes widened, but before he could say anything, a question was asked by a hoarse, slightly pained voice.

"W-what's going on?"

* * *

Rosh Penin found himself surrounded by three strange men, and an aura of reassurance around each helped dispel any thoughts of panicking.

He took a closer look at each of them. Two of them were completely unknown to him, but the third looked very familiar to him somehow. All three had lightsabers attached to their belts.

One of the three, a brown-haired, bearded man with graying hair on the side, knelt down and introduced himself.

"Kyle Katarn, at your service."

The name was unfamiliar, but Rosh guessed that he was an instructor or something at the Academy. "Nice to meet you, give me hand, will you?"

Katarn shook his head and admonished him. "Rest easy for a bit, kid; you've had a pretty rough day. You're lucky to still be one piece." (7)

"You have no idea," grumbled Rosh. "Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere; I'm just going to sit here for a while."

With that, Kyle was satisfied and pulled him to a sitting position.

Shaking his head to clear the last remaining cobwebs, Rosh looked around him to get his bearings. He noticed some other people besides the three standing by him. Past them, he saw...HIM.

Sudden rage flooded through Rosh, giving him strength as he forgot that he was supposed to be still exhausted. He surged upwards, a snarl on his face that promised a whole lot of retribution for the ponytailed man. Rosh was so mad that he couldn't talk straight.

"KORR...Bastard...YOU! You .. I.. kill.. must.. promise... forget.. never.. damn... torture ... types .. of ... ARRGGHH!" He flexed his fingers and prepared to leap upon his bane to throttle the life out of him.

Kyle and Kam were both going to restrain him when someone beat them to it.

"OHhhhhh HOOooonneeeey!"

Too absorbed in his anger, Rosh didn't even hear the sudden exclamation. What did get his attention was the impact of another body throwing itself upon him.

"Who the --- Gaacckkk!" The young Penin discovered that somehow he'd suddenly lost all capability to speak coherently as he recognized his blonde lightsaber wielding pursuer, Narissa.

Rosh proceeded to do the only logical thing he could. He began panicking.

"Someone help me! She's gonna kill me, oh god oh god, please get her off, get her off before she kills me, will someone help me already?"

Responding to his cries for assistance, Kyle and Kam quickly rushed to comply. After some difficulty, they managed to extract the young blonde from Penin; a task much harder than they'd initially thought as she had an incredibly tight grip.

With her arms securely handled by the two men, Luke thought it was an opportune time to get some information. But before he could open his mouth, Narissa frowned at each of them, and shot a dark look at Rosh.

"Hey, what was up with that reaction of yours?" she threw at him.

"My reaction? MY REACTION? You're a fine one to talk!" he spat right back. "First, you try to lightsaber me into tiny little pieces and then, the next thing I know, you're trying to squeeze the life out of me!" He paused, then added for good measure, "You're a complete psychopathic nut!"

A hurt expression found its way on Narissa's face. "W-wh-what kind of monster are you, to say such, such BAD things about me like that. In public, no less!"

For his part, Rosh was too dumbfounded to compose a proper answer to that. Luke, Kam and Kyle had a similar reaction while Ranma was just curiously observing to see what would happen next.

The blonde continued speaking. "I mean, is that anyway to treat a person? Especially someone like me?"

Rosh replied in rising annoyance, exasparation, and not a little anger. "AND WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?"

Despite her arms being held, Narissa still managed to stand proudly somehow as she gave him her answer in a proud tone of voice.

"I am Narissa, formerly Xi-an Phu of the Joketsukou Clan, from the planet of Dathomir. According to the laws set by the founders of Joketsukou, since you," she nodded in Rosh's direction, "have defeated me in combat, I am now your legally attached consort in matrimony."

She suddenly winked at him and smiled gently. "In other words, I'm your wife."

* * *

Within a certain distance of the Massassi Temple, the wildlife were suddenly disturbed by one of the most agonizingly loud wails they'd ever heard in their short lives.

"WWWWWHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTT?"

End Chapter 3

Began June 18, 2006 Finished June 28, 2006

Author's Notes:

Heh, poor Rosh (yeah right). Well, there you have it, one of the NWC besides Ranma making an appearance. Why blonde hair instead of purple, you ask? You'll have to wait for the next chapter for the answer! Hope you've enjoyed it; I had a blast writing this!

C&C is appreciated and welcome, as usual.

1 'Cho Mai' is the name for an ancient Jedi term used to describe the action of cutting off an opponent's weapon hand, just one of the many things Sensei Galdern had taught Ranma. See here for more details: http/starwars. Translation: "You, you, you bastard! I'll kill you! I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"

3 See here for more information on her: http/en. http/en. http/starwars. http/starwars. A bit of a play on Obi-wan's words to Luke in A New Hope


	5. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Star Wars - Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy belongs to Lucas Arts. Ranma 1/2 belongs to Rumiko Takahashi and Viz Video. 

A Star Wars-Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy/Ranma One-half fusion

The Jedi of Chaos  
Chapter 4 (version 1.01)

After years of galactic fighting and inner struggle, for Luke Skywalker, teaching at the Jedi Academy was in comparison, relatively peaceful.

Until things happened, like now, that is.

The Jedi Master's, along with a few others, hopes for a quiet ride back towards the Academy were quickly and firmly squashed.

Seven seconds into the trip, Rosh Penin and Narissa (or Xi-an Phu) continued their, ahem, marital spat. Luke soon found himself wishing that he had the common sense to stay behind with Kyle and three of the older students.

Narissa/Xi-an Phu was tightly bound with some spare industrial grade wire coiling and was sitting on the floor of the transport. Kam and Luke were sitting to either side, keeping a close eye on her and monitoring for any signs of Force usage that might lead to an escape attempt. So far, there had been none at all and with good reason. Her full attention was completely focused on Rosh.

While they had been searching for clues at the Temple, Luke had sent Mara Jade a message with the transport's computer briefly explaining the situation and had requested for some ysalamari. Mara had quickly responded and had told him that he had caught her on a good day; she would borrow one from Karrde and swing by later that night to deliver the Force-nullifying creature personally.

Luke was looking forward to her visit. In fact, he was grasping at anything that would help distract him from the quarrel taking place between THEM. It was really beginning to wear on him rather quickly and was beginning to reach the point where some of his past adventures just couldn't compare in terms of taxing his nerves. It was taking a good measure of effort on his part now to simply blow up at the two kids.

The Jedi code preached about patience, which was fine and all, but this was ridiculous!

"Listen up, Shampoo, or whatever the hell your name is. I am NOT your HUSBAND, you are NOT my WIFE, and we are NOT married."

Kam Solusar, a taciturn man by nature, appeared to be unaffected by it all. However the smallest signs of annoyance were starting to show in his eyes.

"It's XI-AN PHU, you idiot! X-I-A-N PHU!! Get a clue already! That's the fourth time you've said my name wrong!"

Like he had done with Aserna back in the shuttlecraft, Ranma Korr was tuning them out. He casually looked over the side at the swiftly passing trees below, seemingly oblivious to the raging argument.

"Fine, 'Shi-Am Feyu'. Look, I'm telling you right now to leave me alone and go find some other poor sap to crush to death." Rosh winced, remembering the glomp of pain she'd done to him. Damn, but that had just about killed him by squeezing the oxygen out of his lungs! Stupid blonde homicidal maniac! Despite her firm declarations about leaving those - what did she call them? - Disciples of Ragnos, the young Penin didn't believe it for a second. Neither did Masters Skywalker and Solusar, he was certain of that.

Something in Rosh's demand made Ranma shiver. Shrugging it off as nothing, he continued on what he was doing.

Unlike their instructors, both prospective and current students onboard weren't trying to ignore what was going on. In fact, they were taking an avid interest in it, eagerly soaking up the amusement factor for all it was worth. This was ten times better than one of those soaps on the holovid!

Rosh snorted in growing frustration. After everything that had happened today, he wasn't about to put up with any more unnecessary crap. "I'll say it as many times as needed until you finally get it into your thick skull. We ARE not married! Jeez, you're such an airhead, almost as worse as Aserna!"

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" Xi-an Phu didn't know who this 'Aserna' person was, but she had a suspicion that she'd just been insulted. Of all the nerve! Her new mate was cute, but his attitude really sucked!

Sure, she'd expected some hesitation and certainly a little reluctance from him, not full blown hostility and anger! Though, after being exposed to the 'outside world', Xi-an could understand where Rosh was coming from; after all from his point of view, a half hour ago she had been trying to kill him.

And there was another thing to consider. Now that she wasn't attached to Crimson, she had already decided that she'd go back to being called Xi-an Phu. Narissa had been Crimson's 'new' name for her, and personally, she'd thought it had sounded pretty neat. But since she had a new husband, she would have to cast off that name and resort to her original one. Such was the law of the Joketsukou Clan, and so she would abide by it.

"Will both of you please be quiet!? You're not the only ones on this transport, you know," Luke amiably remarked. Too bad the sight of his stiff jaw and narrowed eyes said otherwise.

Ashamed of himself and dropping volume to more normal levels, Rosh said, "Sorry about that, Master Skywalker. It's, it's just that the Psycho Blonde over there refuses to drop that stupid fairytale that I'm her husband!"

For Xi-an, she 'conveniently' only heard the last three words of Rosh's sentence. Her expression brightened and were her hands free she would have clapped her hands together in delight. "Oh sweetie, you DO admit it! In that case, it won't be long until we can consummate our marriage!!"

Rosh visibly blanched at the thought of being in the same room with her, though at the same time half of him was excited at hearing her proclamation. A wild thought ran through his mind; in the bed, would she either strangle him to death or engage in long, exhaustive hours of sex?

(Un)Fortunately, his sense of self-preservation came to the fore. "No, I am NOT and we WON'T!" he shouted angrily, folding his arms over his chest defiantly.

"You are too! Clan Joketsukou's laws clearly state that in the event of a male outsider who, in this case - you -, decisively defeats a female warrior, me, in combat than said female warrior has to give the male a sign of her affection and then the two are formally married. End of story," she stated, a satisfied look on her face.

However, that wasn't the end of the story in Rosh's opinion. He shook his head, snickering at the sheer incredibility of such a law. "That is so full of rubbish that an idiot can see it! And I'm reminding you again, stupid laws or no, I am not your husband and I don't want anything to do with you. End. Of. Story."

To Luke's dismay, the two of them suddenly began loudly arguing in a manner more suitable to pre-adolescents.

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

Ranma suddenly turned to his seatmate and said, "Interesting, isn't it? It seems to me that they fight like a married couple already."

Kam Solusar, taking this chance to listen to something else besides Penin or Xi-an, smirked. "Yeah, pretty interesting."

Luke barely stifled the urge to slap his head in frustration at the childish display in front of him. "My Academy for an anti-ache pill," he muttered. Gods, how he wished he was home already.

* * *

"Here we are folks, home safe and sound!" the driver announced cheerfully as he parked in front of the Academy's main entrance.

"Thank the Force," muttered Rosh, feeling relieved since he wouldn't have to spend any more time in HER presence. He threw Xi-an a smug smirk; she returned it with a happy smile, thinking that her husband was lightening up about her.

The students were disappointed because their source of amusement was no more and gave a groan to show it.

Luke was also relieved, though he kept it from showing. Finally, now he could go to his room and pop a tablet or two to erase the migraine he was feeling. Once that was done, he would officially greet the newcomers, well, at least the ones who weren't badly injured.

Though she was still tied up, and the feeling in her legs had long numbed, Xi-an was admiring the architecture of the Academy. Her great great great grandmother Kul-ahn would've definitely approved.

While he was putting up a facade of his normal stoic self, Kam really needed an immediate visit to the nearest lavatory. Quickly informing Luke that he had some pressing business to attend to, he was the first one off the transport. As soon as he rounded the corner of the entrance, his feet quickly began pounding a rapid tune towards the nearest public lavatory.

Luke stared in confusion at Kam, then looked at the group of students, picking out two of them in particular. "Ranma, Rosh, could you escort Ms. Phu here to the holding cells on Level 3? Mr. Twitkeat, could you show them the way and also help keep an eye on her as well?"

One of the students bowed respectfully to Luke. "As you wish, Master Skywalker." Then, as he turned to regard the two shorter men, his entire bearing changed into something less humble and more arrogant. "Follow me, candidates," Koun ordered in an imperious sounding tone, turning around and starting towards the main entrance.

Freshly irritated at meeting a second arrogant individual, Rosh opened his mouth to challenge Koun's assumptive attitude but was interrupted by Xi-an. "Holding cells? Prison?" she asked in surprise. "How come? I should be staying with my husband in his room!"

The young Penin growled at what he viewed as a pathetic attempt to be clueless and innocent. The memory of her rushing at him with a lightsaber was, needless to say, the stuff of nightmares.

"Shut up, you Psycho Barbie!" he growled. "No one here is stupid enough to let someone like you free to roam around and kill us in our sleep! Besides, I'm not even sure that a holding cell is enough; in fact, I think we should just, well, make sure right here and now that she won't be able to do any more harm."

With that in mind, Rosh turned to the one person he'd never thought he'd ask a favor of.

With a serious look on his face, he said, "Korr, you have the gun. You've seen how dangerous her and hers were. Would YOU feel comfortable sleeping with her around in the Academy? Even in a cell? With her Force powers and all?"

As she heard this, Xi-an eyed Ranma and then felt a growing doubt as she did so. Her husband's acquaintance was indeed quite a scary one. Though he was almost as handsome as her husband, that emotionless face of his, those ice-cold eyes... It made a shiver run up her spine, and with good reason.

The Joketsukou Clan fought, trained, and lived passionately. It was an integral part of their lifestyle, and none of them believed any different. For Xi-an, someone like Ranma Korr was a living antithesis to every fierce, tough Joketsukou member. His very presence insulted her upbringing, and each time she looked at his cold, expressionless face, she became affronted and quickly angered.

Ranma's eyes narrowed as he regarded Xi-an, remembering how viciously the girl's dark-blue leader had fought. For the first time since they'd met, Penin had actually brought up something important for a change. Ranma was surprised at that, but he was even more surprised about discovering that he agreed with Penin on this particular matter. With that, he came to a quick decision and then suddenly drew his gun and fired.

Only with the Force was Luke able to react in time. His light-blue energy blade flashed into existence and safely deflected the laser bolt down into the transport's floor. A burnt mark appeared at the point of impact, smoke wafting up from it.

"Stand down, Ranma Korr!" he ordered in a steely tone of voice. "Reholster your gun; this girl is no longer a threat!"

Koun Twitkeat became enraged at the sight of Xi-an Phu being endangered by a lowly candidate and acted immediately to discourage any further attempts. For some reason, he failed to see the risk in attacking a man armed with a gun and also, since he'd been raised by a high class Alderaan family who frowned on acting with dishonorable intentions, Koun thus began to state his intentions in a clear voice.

Let it be known that most multi-verse analogues of Tatewaki Kunou lacked common sense at any given time.

"Fiend! You dare threaten the life of my divine blonde angel? I, Koun Twitkeat, shall punish you---Ooooooooff!" Unfortunately for him, however, Ranma had been long aware and immediately reacted with a back kick.

With a foot in his stomach, Koun's momentum was reversed and he was knocked away from Ranma and Rosh.

"Idiot," snorted Rosh in contempt, conveniently forgetting that he himself had tried a similar attack on Ranma earlier which had also failed miserably.

Dismissing Koun as minor irritant, Ranma returned his attention back to Luke and Xi-an Phu, and, as if he hadn't been interrupted he continued speaking.

"A threat she may not be for the moment," he corrected, his blaster not budging an inch. "My apologies for firing on Academy grounds, but surprisingly, I find myself agreeing with Penin on this part. I don't think that an enemy possessing such Force abilities like hers would be able to be contained by a normal jail cell. Nor do I think that anyone, with the exception of mercenaries and cowards, could switch loyalties in an eye blink. She has to have some sort of scheme running."

"That's right!" Rosh exclaimed. "One minute she's trying to kill me and the next she's calling me her husband and trying to drag me off to bed!? There's something definitely wrong with this picture!"

His self-proclaimed 'wife', having already recovered from the shock of being fired at while being a prisoner, chose this moment to correct Rosh's statement. "Wait, you've got it all wrong! I SO wasn't going to kill you! Knock you out, probably. Seduce you, certainly--" she trailed off. Her cheeks blushed a deep red as she murmured shyly, "Oh my, I said that out loud, didn't I?"

Luke didn't know what the exact term was, but it suddenly felt as if for no reason at all he would suddenly fall flat on his face. On the other hand, possessing considerably less self-composure, Rosh and the three other students did just that and shook the transport with their collective impacts.

Koun's jaw dropped open as he stared at the voluptuous blonde in open lust. Why such an unmatchable beauty would choose to seduce a skinny, lowborn peasant instead of a noble son of the Twitkeat family was completely beyond his understanding. Yes, he could see it now! That was it; Penin must have used the Force to meddle with her mind. Therefore, it was his duty to save her from his evil plot and defend her from Korr's homicidal tendencies!

"No, my fair princess! He is addling your mind with his detestable mind tricks; you must resist him! Join with me and I will protect your maidenhood!" Koun exclaimed. Knotting his fists in frustration, the young Twitkeat fervently wished that his lightsaber was already constructed! Unfortunately, his graduation to the rank of Jedi Knight was half a year away, and that was the only time when he would be allowed to make it.

Everyone else looked at him in confusion and wondered what the hell he was talking about. For his part, Rosh's right eye twitched as he glared at the apparently demented fool.

"My maidenhood?" asked Xi-an, looking puzzled. She blinked her eyes and said, "I'm afraid that you're mistaken. My 'maidenhood' was taken years ago."

"Damn!" cursed one of the younger students, which was ignored by everyone else.

Rosh became uneasy at the disturbing light that appeared in Twitkeat's eyes. He began cursing under his breath as Koun turned his whole attention towards him, looking as if there was nothing else in the world he would've loved to do than to strangle Rosh. "Damn it, I'm surrounded by fruitcakes!"

Koun's cobalt eyes gleamed eerily and he spoke in a slightly trembling fashion. "So, the peasant Penin deflowered my lovely warrior goddess long ago, did he? You thought you could get away with that abominable act, you vile enemy of women!?"

"Hey, I'm not your 'lovely warrior goddess', you idiot! Only Rosh-honey can call me that!"

Rosh threw Xi-an a fierce glare. "You shut up! You're only making things worse, you psychotic Barbie!" He turned his attention to Koun. "Enemy of women? Dude, seriously, what the HELL have you been smoking? I didn't even know the psychotic Barbie until earlier today, which is something that I will regret for the rest of my life!"

Crimson's former subordinate scowled at him, not liking at all his chosen nickname for her. "Don't call me that, Rosh-honey! My name's Xi-an! Xi-an!"

Luke rubbed his head and groaned under his breath. The migraine had just invited its younger siblings along for the ride. At this rate, he would need the full bottle.

Ignoring the side conversation going on around him, Ranma continued to address the Jedi Master, "You can't afford to trust people like her; I know their type all too well. They pretend to be your friend and gain your trust and then -BAM!!- they betray you at a critical point. She's trying to fool you into thinking that she won't make any trouble; however--," his eyes narrowed and his voice became harsher. "--She doesn't fool me, not even in the slightest. I do not care to live in the same place with a known enemy. Please move clear, Skywalker, I can at least remove one more monster from this galaxy."

Keeping his senses on alert, just in case, Luke used the Force to emit waves of calm. "I have used the Force to verify her intentions. I sincerely believe that she doesn't mean us any harm in any way, and of this minute, Xi-an has no desire to return to the Disciples of Ragnos."

"She could be faking it," Rosh suggested, taking a breather from the three-way argument going on between him, Xi-an, and Twitkeat.

"Possible," Ranma admitted. "Though I'm certain that Luke Skywalker would not be so easily deceived by someone possessing an inferior level of mastery in the Force."

"I wouldn't be," Luke asserted. Then his features hardened and the Force added an edge to his voice. "Now stand down! That is not a request!"

Ranma didn't want to take the chance of Xi-an Phu putting a vibroblade in their backs, but nor did he want to be at odds with Skywalker. He paused for a moment, and then holstered his gun. "I don't know how you plan to contain her, but hear me now. Regardless of what you said about her intentions, if my instincts tell me that she's planning something, I will not hesitate to stop her at any cost."

Luke gazed into Ranma's eyes and saw that the younger man meant it completely. Normally, he would have decried such an announcement as an act of the Dark Side, but in Ranma's case, it was different. His declaration was spoken with true conviction and in a matter of fact way; there was no hate, or anger, or any other heavy emotion emanating within him.

In fact, Luke found it difficult to sense anything besides a feeling of frozen ice from him. Either the bulk of Ranma's Force potential was so deeply buried within that ice or it was so small as to be almost insignificant. Which one was it?

Putting it aside for now, Luke said, "I understand where your concerns are coming from, and I promise to you that I do have knowledge of a way to render Ms. Phu's Force abilities completely powerless. All I ask is that you trust me in this matter."

Several moments of silence passed. Ranma and Luke locked eyes and then finally an understanding passed between them. Nodding curtly, Ranma bowed to the Jedi Master in respect and walked towards the main entrance. Shooting a confused glance at Luke, Rosh followed him, intent on asking him a few questions.

As soon as Ranma turned his back, the tension escaped from everyone else. Luke sighed out loud, thinking of the possible problems ahead and deactivated his lightsaber. Suddenly remembering to breathe again, the three students dropped gracelessly down to the transport's seats and wiped the sweat off their faces.

Koun glared wrathfully at the retreating figure of Ranma. "Such an ill-mannered peasant; how dare he treat a flower of beauty so?" Turning to face Luke, he said, "Fear not, Master Skywalker. I, Koun Twitkeat, eldest child of the noble Twitkeat family, once of Alderaan, would gracefully allow myself to offer you aid in escorting the paragon of loveliness towards her temporary incarceration."

Barely withstanding the temptation to roll his eyes in amused exasperation, Luke asked him to help Xi-an Phu to stand up.

* * *

"Hey Korr, hold up a bit! What's the rush? Where you going?" Rosh asked, matching Ranma's quick stride.

"What is it?"

"Look, I can't believe I'm saying this but thanks. Thanks for backing me up there, that is."

"I didn't do it for you. I did what I did because that Xi-an woman is a possible threat. Her leader almost killed me when I fought her, thus implying that Xi-an is well versed in lightsaber combat and Force manipulation. That kind of association is definitely something that I will not overlook."

"Wait a second, you fought her leader?" Rosh asked in disbelief.

"I believe I said that already," Ranma told him.

"Her leader? Short blood-thirsty psycho killer bitch with a red lightsaber?"

Ranma nodded to show that Rosh was indeed on the right track.

"You, you fought her? And won? No way! How the hell did you manage to defeat someone who's armed with a lightsaber and can use the Force like no one's business?"

Ranma gestured at his lightsaber. In reply, Rosh shook his head and said, "Okay, fine, you were also armed with a lightsaber. But even with that, and also plus I'm assuming that you can handle that thing just fine, she had a huge advantage over you with those Force powers of hers!"

"She did," Ranma admitted. "In fact, she had me on the defensive until the very end."

"What happened then?"

A cold smile of satisfaction appeared. "You could say that she...underestimated me."

Rosh was about to ask what Ranma meant by that when he was interrupted by a very familiar voice from behind them, one that twisted his gut into a sudden turmoil of dread.

"Mr. Korr! Rosh! Aiyeeeeeee! Yer both aw'right!"

Rosh twisted his head and looked at Ranma. "Oh gods, please no," he moaned in heartfelt desperation. "Don't tell me that's--"

"Aserna Kowpath'k," Ranma finished, nodding his head in calm resignation. That was all the time they had to react before the over-the-top cheerful Zabrak ex-nurse slammed into them in a tight hug.

While Ranma bore this sign of friendly affection almost indifferently, Rosh had quite a different reaction. Just an hour ago, he had been battered about by rolling downhill over many decent-sized stones and rocks. That meant to apply any kind of pressure against his body was a big no-no.

Unfortunately, Aserna didn't know that.

Rosh almost fainted from the magnitude of pain that ripped through him. It was only Aserna's strong grip that kept him from falling to his knees. Damn, this time had felt even worse than when Xi-an Phu had jumped him!

Quick reflexes or not, Ranma was caught off guard by the glomp. Under the Soul of Ice though, his emotions were suppressed and he didn't feel anything from it, though his body did register the heat of her body as she happily pressed against him.

Cheerfully oblivious to the torture she had just subjected Rosh to, Aserna smiled happily as she slowly released them. She was just so relieved; the whole time they'd been gone she'd been so worried about them that she just couldn't stop talking. Her patients had shared her apprehension. They had to have been worried about the two men also, why else they all had groaned and muttered nonstop?

Then she noticed all the bruises on Rosh's face. Concern instantly replaced her happiness as she reached out to him, wincing at his condition. "Huney, what happened? Who did this ta ya?"

Grimacing at the memory, Rosh shook his head and replied, "Loooong story, and one that I'm not that eager to tell. By the way Aserna, where is everyone and how're they doing?"

"Well, fer some of 'em, they're bein' patched up in Medbay. Th' others are dunked in th' bacta tanks on th' lower levels an' should be gud as new in a week or two!" Then a proud smile lit up her face. "An' guess what!? Turns out that Mast'r Skywalker called in one of his form'ah students, a Mon Cal' 'bassador named Cighal, and yers truly's gonna be a Jedi Healer 'prentice ta her!"

"That's good to hear!" For me, Rosh added silently. Thank the Force. For a moment there, he feared that he would be stuck with Aserna practically twelve hours a day. She was nice, but better this Cighal than him, he figured.

Aserna snapped her fingers. "Oh yeah, Ah jus' remembered! I'm s'posed ta take th' both of ya ta Mast'r Tionne fer ya orientation! Come on, off we go ta th' Records room!"

An hour later, Rosh was in the room that he'd been assigned to live in for the duration of his stay. After meeting Mistress Tionne, who was as beautiful as any woman he'd ever seen, who had given him and Ranma the grand tour, they had been assigned to their rooms. The two of them were on the same floor, Rosh at the end of the hall with Ranma near the staircase.

Surprisingly, Rosh had found out that he didn't mind that he was living near Ranma. In fact,considering that Ranma had agreed with him on Xi-an Phu being a threat, Rosh reasoned that since the ponytailed man had both a lightsaber and a blaster, he would be the first line of defense should Xi-an Phu somehow escape and choose to finish Rosh off.

With those thoughts in mind, Rosh began unpacking his baggage case and whistled a cheerful tune, feeling much better.

For the newest candidates, the day finally came to an end. The pilot of the shuttlecraft, along with the Twi-lek couple and one of the Kel'dor males were in sleeping fitfully in Medbay. The rest, being more seriously injured, were peacefully bobbing in the bacta tanks. Aserna was already sleeping in her quarters, as was Dah'kk in his. Rosh soon joined them after he finished his unpacking.

However, for two people, the night was still young.

Xi-an Phu was in her cell, a look of resignment on her face as she reflected upon the sudden change in her life. Outside the cell and assigned to watch her until Mara Jade arrived, Kam Solusar and Koun Twitkeat were bored, though they still kept alert. Kam soon fell into a meditation trance while Koun fell into a lustful, staring trance that confused Xi-an, who didn't know whether to feel angry or flattered.

Despite everything that had happened that day, Ranma Korr wasn't tired at all. He wandered the Academy for a bit, eventually ending up in the cafeteria where he saw Luke and Kyle eating dinner.Not hesitating at all, he headed straight for their table and was bidded by Kyle to have a seat.

"Something on your mind, kid?" Kyle asked.

"More than I wished I had," Ranma admitted expressionlessly. He shifted his attention towards Luke. "Sensei Skywalker, I'll tell you right here and now that once before in my life, I was harshly betrayed by someone I completely trusted, someone I viewed as a role model and looked up to. And in the process of doing so, my life was nearly ruined and I would have allowed myself to die had it not been for Sensei Galdern."

Intrigued and more than a little concerned, Luke managed to temporarily push aside his ambiguous opinion of the boy's character and took a neutral pose. There was still a good two hours before Mara arrived with the ysalamari. In the meantime he would lend an ear and see if he and Kyle could be of any help to Ranma.

"Tell us what you can," the Jedi Master encouraged gently. Kyle rested his arms on the table and leaned forward, his food suddenly forgotten.

Ranma briefly closed his eyes to prepare himself, and then he started talking.

End Chapter 4

Author's Notes:

Yay! I'm back!

I had this thing finished quite some time ago but lacked the interest to post it. Now my muse is back (to stay, hopefully), so I'm posting it up, after a quick editing and polishing up, of course. Later next week, I'll repost revised versions of the earlier chapters. I'll start writing chapter 5 soon.


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